but the less it suppresseth it or provideth any Remedy at all against it Rigour The Meer Law as it is the first Covenant of Works contains in it nothing but Rigour and Justice but no Grace nor Mercy at all A Rule it is to declare what is Right and what is Wrong but no means of it self efficacious to the doing of Right or the not doing of Wrong And therefore there is an extraordinary Weakness therein as to the Justification of a Sinner Heb. 7.18 Rom. 8.3 What therefore the Law could not do for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof through the flesh Christ taking the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And that the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus might make us free from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 7 5 6 For when we were in the flesh the Motions of Sin by the Law did work in our Members to bring forth fruit unto Death But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter So sin taking occasion by the Commandment works in us all manner of Concupiscence For without the Law sin is dead And so we were alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and we died And the Commandment which was ordained to Life proved in effect to be unto Death But sin taking occasion by the Commandment deceived us and by that Commandment slew us All this while the Law is holy and the Commandment holy and just and good And that which is so holy and just and good is not directly nor truly the Cause of our Death nor can it be so God forbid by its own Natural operation for out of good nothing but good can proceed but Sin that it might appear sin naturally worketh death by the occasion of that which is good For Sin taketh occasion by the Commandment to become exceeding sinful The CONTENTS Sin deceives Grace un-deceives My defect Fruition High understanding Ignorance True knowledge Means to discern Truth Rules Principles Authority Infallibility Will. My Lust Vnderstanding Physical and Moral Agents Will. Casual Cause of Sin Law TITLE IV. Of the Deceit of the Law THis seems to be a mystery Sin deceives that we should be deceived into sin by the Law of God It will not therefore be a Digression nor altogether unprofitable if it were to shew how a Law and a good Law and the Spiritual Law of God in the Old Testament should be said by St. Paul to be though but an occasion to deceive us into sin and death Strange that that which was so good should be made so much as the occasion of Evil and of the greatest of Evils to death it self and the greatest of deaths to a death in sin How then did Sin take this occasion by the Commandement of God first to deceive us and then to kill us if we can tell And how great then is the Power of Grace O the depth of the Riches of God's mercy that only can make us alive unto God Grace undeceives and be a death unto Sin and to the death of Sin and kill that which would kill us when nothing else can do it That when Sin did so abound by the occasion of Good Grace might so much the more abound by the occasion of Evil For which we must thank God who hath given us this great victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. When therefore Sin urges the strength of the Law against us and advances the Sword of Justice to strike us to death and that by the accusation of the Devil who hath the power of Death then Grace lays her hand upon the Sword of Justice and stops the mouth of Sin and the clamour of the Law and of the Devil that lays the Law against us and saves us from the stroke of Death and giveth us Victory over all those through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we may be deceived after a sort by the Law but we can no waies be deceived by Grace But yet we have not answered this point How the Law or rather Sin by the Law comes to deceive us This I say then Sin deceives me by misinforming my Understanding and by misguiding my Will The Law orders me to life but Sin deceives me in and by the Law unto death It will be sit therefore to consider here these four Points 1. My defect I am deceived that 's for certain 2. The direct efficient Cause of my deception is Lust 3. The casual or accidental Cause of Sin the Law 4. The Innocency of the Law My Defect My Defect I am plainly deceived He is said to be deceived that akes one thing for another this is all one with an errour or mistake in the Understanding and this in the Will declining to follow right Reason an Erratum He is properly decieved who fails of some end which he intended and aimed at Decipitur de quo aliquid capitur he is deceived from whom something is taken away which he should or would enjoy This is Fraud God praeordained every thing to its proper end All Unreasonable Creatures attain their ends but if they should not they cannot be said to be deceived because they understood them not that they might aim at them Reasonable Creatures fail of their Ends because they are deceived in their Judgments and Endeavours God in the Scriptures opens and offers Eternal life and gives me Understanding to apprehend it and a Will to accept it a Law to direct and his Grace to assist my Humane frailties But I am deceived 1. In my Apprehension by infinite Errors mistaking Falshood for Truth Vice for Vertue Pleasure or Profit for true happiness Temporal life and glory for Eternal 2. In my Prosecution by infinite Errata misdoing evil for good Fruition 3. In my Fruition which I fail of in the end and I deceive my self by way of fraud My Understanding I speak not of her privative Ignorance but of her Errors her oblique and depraved knowledge the more I have the more I am deceived High Understanding An elevate transcendent Understanding frames most irregular conclusions A fine Wit hath more refined Errors Learning it self is but a kind of progress in Error Ignorance When I was quite Ignorant I had no error in me but now I have got a little knowledge I have learned some Rules to erre by Learning is a remedy to Nescience but no bar to Error and Truth carrying the same countenance I have no perfect skill to discern them and especially because little Ore amongst a great deal of Dross and a pound of Error to a dram of Truth We are all deceived in one thing or other Truth is hard to come by and there
deceive by some Instrument and that Instrument must be Good For Sin is ugly and therefore naturally to be abhorred It must therefore put on the fairest Visage and Shape of Good that is naturally desirable the better to deceive us 1. Sin deceives of it self without a Law 2. Sin deceives by another much more with a Law The CONTENTS Law of Nature Law Positive TITLE V. Of Deceit without a Law SIN deceives of it self without a Law Law of Nature Properly Man is not without a Law for the Law of Nature is in all Mankind And there are Laws Positive Divine or Humane given to all Nations upon several occasions at sundry times But though there be in my heart a Law of Nature written with visible Characters to the eye of the Mind yet except I see a Positive Law written with Characters visibly to the eye of my Body I think my self safe As for the eye of my mind I care not to open it nor whether there be such an eye at all and if it be open whether I will or no I do all I can to shut it and labour to forget what I know But so long as Sense knows no Law I sin the more boldly and comfortably 1. Because there is no plain outward Contradiction to what I do as for the inward I pass that by and no body knows it but my self 2. Because there is no punishment against what I do as for the inward pain of my Conscience I pass that by and no body can read it in my face and no body feels it but my self I owe a debt in Conscience Instance but because there is no express Law to force me to pay it by reason there are no Specialties nor Witnesses in the Case therefore I will not pay it I am bound in Conscience but not in Law for there is no Law to take hold of me By this an honest man is known from an Hypocrite For an honest man will do Righteous things whether there be a Law or no Law but an Hypocrite will do nothing without Law 1 Tim. 1.9 Therefore the Law is not made for a Righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient for ungodly and for Sinners Gal. 3.19 for unholy and profane for murtherers c. And Laws are added because of Transgressions Or if there be a Law yet if it watches not me or cannot find me out or the Officers of Justice be blinded and will not lay hold of me I am well enough I can do a thing in secret that it shall never be known or if it be I have a Trick in Law to come off or I can bribe and buy it out Any way to deceive my self Rom. 2.14 The Scriptures say They that have no Law are a Law unto themselves But this they can evade well enough My Conscience checks me and bids me hold Rom. 2.15 when my Lust urges me to do what my Spirit forbids This shews the work of the Law written in mens Hearts their Conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 5.13 For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of Man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile but glory and honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first also to the Gentile Rom. 2.9 c. For as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law When the Commandment came Rom. 7.9.5 sin revived and I died The Motions of sin which were by the Law did work in my members to bring forth fruit unto death and by the Law came the knowledg of Sin Law positive So the Law of Nature is in all and the Law Positive is given to all But Lust broke all these Laws and the long habits of sin and frequent and constant examples of evil Practicers obliterated the Law Natural in good part and caused an oblivion willful for the most part of all Positive Statutes The Law of Nature consists of general Principles and Common Notions So that the Collections and Consequences of Reason from them to be applied to particular cases and occurrences are difficult and the remembrance of those generals very faint Wherefore God renewed this General Law 1. By his own Revelation to the Patriarchs 2. By his own Writing to the Israelites 3. By the Writings of Lawgivers as of Solon Lycurgus Romulus c. to the Gentiles In the mean time before this extraordinary Revelation and Writing Sin was in the world sufficiently even until the Law was written by God and Moses but sin was not so strongly imputed by the bare writing in the heart as it was when over and above to make them without all excuse it was written upon Tables that he that runs may read it for then it confuted them with a witness of a high contempt of Natural and Positive Law both written Rom. 2.9 So all were concluded under sin and are without all excuse and shall be judged for sin as well those that are without Law as with Law Rom. 3.20 But by the Law written came the greater Knowledg of sin and the greater Conviction of sin and the greater Punishment for sin so that the Sinner that before went on rashly in pleasing his lust without much conviction or fear was by the coming of the Law in writing more strongly convinced and frighted and smarted too for it though all this while it raged and broke out more than before to the working of all manner of Concupiscence The CONTENTS By all good Law Lust a Law Law a restraint Law an equivocal Word Law of Mind Law of Flesh Law of God Law of Sin Grace a sole Remedy By all Bad law By one Law in the same law Words and Sense of Law Letter and Spirit By one Law in another By the Law of God in the law of Man By the law of Man in the Law of God By one Moral law in another By the law of Nature in a Positive law By a Pretended Law of God in a certain law of Man By a Private law in a Publick law By the Moral law in the Ceremonial law By the Ceremonial law in the Moral law By one law in all other Laws TITLE VI. Of Deceit with a Law SIN decieves with and by a Law Sin is a transgression of a Law Of deceit with a Law whether it be written or not written but especially written because of the express Precept and Penalty therein contained And by how much the more the Law is good by so much the more I set my self in opposition against it 1. Because it is a grievous contradiction of my will which I would fain fulfil 2. Because it is a sore punishment to my Soul and Body or
infinitely unlike him and disagreeable to his Spirit And only the pure Spiritual offices do remain which are in their own nature acceptable unto God very like him and agreeable to his Spirit This is the dispensation of the Grace of God Eph. 3.2 5. The Mystery which in other Ages was not made known to the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto the holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit The CONTENTS Writing in Tables Law lost Law found Law lost again Law restored Septuagints Translation Law burnt Maccabes Sects of Jews Christ's coming Law on Mount Sinai the same with that of Adam in Paradise The Renewal of the Covenant of Works The equivocal word Law TITLE XVI Of the History of the Law THE History of the Law is this 1. Besides the universal Writing in the hearts of all men much obscured by evil Practice and Examples 2. It was written by God briefly in two Tables Moral Writing in Tables It was farther written by Moses in a Book Ceremonial that it might be read by the King and published by the Priest to all the People in the solemnity of the Feast of Tabernacles Deut. 17.9 3. After that by Malice or Negligence this Book was lost Law lost Then by chance found by Hilkiah the Priest Law found 2 Chr. 34.12 2 Kings 22.8 and brought to Josiah the King and by him published 4. Few years after at the Captivity of Babylon it was lost Law lost again Neh 8.1 Dan. 9.13 or at least corrupted At the Return from seventy years Captivity Esdras Law restored the Scribe and Priest either restored it or amended it as it is now who also expounded it And hence came the Scribes and Doctours of the Law 5. Septuagints Translation This Book by Ptolomeus Philadelphus was translated by the Septuagint into Greek which Original was burnt in the Temple of Serapis by the Souldiers of Julius Caesar while he was dallying with Cleopatra the Egyptian Queen brought to him in Culcitro but by the Providence of God there had been Copies thereof in several places whereby it is preserved to this day Law burnt 1 Mac. 1.42 6. Some years after Antiochus Epiphanes King of Syria compelled the Jews to forsake and burn their Law Maccabes 7. Little more than five years this mischief continued then came Judas Maccabaeus and relieved the Jews Sects of Jews 8. The Assanonaei his Race coming to reign the Law was retrieved but many Heresies and Sects arose as Scribes Pharises Sadduces Essens the Schools of Shanai and Hillel c. who falsly interpreting the Law led the People into Errours by vain Traditions Teaching for Doctrines of God the Commandments of Men. Christ's coming 9. Then came Christ in a corrupt Age and restored the Truth and confuted their vain Doctrines and Manners And abolished the Ceremonial or Ecclesiastical Law of the Priesthood and brought in a New Law and a New Priesthood of his own after the order of Melchisedeck And by this his New Law Gospel Covenant and Testament he fulfilled the Old of Types and perfected the Moral Law of Nature The Law on Mount Sinai the same with that of Adam in Paradise The Law delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and written by him in two Tables of Stone was the same Covenant of works with the Children of Israel which he had made before with Adam in Paradise before his Fall writing it in his heart Do this and live and renewed to Noah Gen. 8.21 Heb. 9.9 to Melchisedeck Gen. 14.18 To Abraham David and all the Prophets And that this was the Covenant of Works appears by that of Moses The Lord made not this Covenant with our Fathers Deut. 5.3 but with us These Fathers were the Patriarchs unto Adam with whom he made the Covenant of Grace after his Fall The Renewal of the Covenant of Works The reason of the Repetition and renewal of this Covenant of Works by writing it upon Tables of Stone was because that Law which was written by God in Adams heart was obliterated and defaced by customes of Idolatry and all sorts of wickedness which the Sons of men gave themselves unto while the Sons of God by keeping the Old Traditions and the help of divine Revelations retrieved the Impressions of God's Law And yet the Posterity of Abraham Isaac and Jacob by conversation and example in Egypt had much forgotten the Old Rules of Nature's Law and the Instructions and Examples of their godly Parents and imputed not their own sin unto themselves because they saw no Law written against their Actions and could not see the Law in their own hearts Ro. 5.13 20. neither heard of any punishment denounced against them for their wickedness and would not hear the checks of their own Consciences And therefore because Sin was in them and increased and death reigned over them for their sin yet they being without a written Law to evidence this sin and death unto their Consciences God saw it necessary that there should be a New Edition and publication of the Law or Covenant of Works to bring them to the knowledge of Sin and Punishment and thereby to stop them in their career of Wickedness by the fear of a Curse and a Fleshly hope of a fruitful Land to dwell in if they would observe his Laws Reserving a greater Blessing if they would trust in his Promises which was the Covenant of Grace by which they were to be justified upon their Faith in those Promises and not by the Works of the Law So the Law was added because of Transgressions till Justification should ome by the Promise of Grace For the Law was weak and unprofitable to the purpose of Salvation but helpful to the discovery and stopping of Sin and the Curse that they might see the need they had of the Grace of God by which they might be saved and not by Works For as the Covenant of Grace made with Adam and renewed to Abraham had been needless if the Covenant of Works could have given Life So after the Promise or Covenant of Grace was once made it had been needless to renew the Covenant of Works to the end that Righteousness and Life should be had thereby Gal. 3.19 It was meerly added because of Transgressions that is not set up as a solid thing in gross sufficient of it self but added or put to the former Law given to Adam which was most forgotten Furthermore this Law given on Mount Sinai was added by way of subserviency and attendance the better to advance and make effectual the Covenant of Grace so that although the same Covenant which was made with Adam was renewed on Mount Sinai yet I say still it was not for the same purpose but it was given to Adam as a Rule of Salvation by it self if he had kept it but it was renewed only to help forward and to introduce another and better Covenant and so to be
for sin Who needeth not daily as those High Priests to offer up Sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the Peoples for this he did once Heb. 7.17 when he offered up himself For the Law maketh men High-Priests which have infirmity but the Word of the Oath which was since the Law maketh the Son who is consecrated for ever more Heb. 9.7.11 But into the second went the High-Priest alone once every year not without blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the People But Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this building neither by the blood of Goats and Calves but by his own blood he entred once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal Redemption for us Christ hath suffered once for our sins 1 Pet. 3.18 the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickened in the Spirit 1. Because of the All-sufficiency of this one Sacrifice in perfecting Reason 1 for ever them that are sanctified so that there needs no Remembrance of Sins any more Christ being the Author and Finisher and the Captain of our Salvation made perfect through his Sufferings 2. Because if Christ had offered more than once he should have broke Reason 2 off his first appearance before God in Heaven and gone out again out of that Sanctuary and then have re-entred or come in again for the same purpose which he shall never do till the Resurrection when he shall come about another business of Judgment belonging to his Mediatorship and to bring those into the Sanctuary for whom he hath once and for ever made way by the offering of his blood in Heaven once shed upon Earth thereby opening the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers 3. Because that which being once done is of Eternal Vertue cannot Reason 3 needs not be iterated 4. Because Christ entred into the Sanctuary by his blood and the blood Reason 4 of Life can be shed but once for It is appointed for all men but once to dye and after death the judgment so Christ once entred Heb. 9.27 28. and shall never enter more till he go out at the last day and enter again after his Judgment to give possession of the Kingdom of Heaven saying come ye blessed Children of my Father receive the Kingdom of Heaven prepared for you from the beginning of the world In that Christ dyed he dyed unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God And Christ being raised from the dead death hath no more Dominion over him Reason 5 5. Because Christ bore our Sins and Punishments once upon Earth therefore not in Heaven for there he offered himself without spot and blameless ie without Sin or Punishment for that is no place for Sins and Sorrows or Infirmities to enter into for flesh and blood and no unclean thing can enter into that Holy place But all sins and all uncleannesses are done away by virtue of this One offering of Christ once and for ever SECTION VI. In Heaven Heb. 9.24 c. Christ offered himself in Heaven It was therefore necessary that the Patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these but the Heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these For Christ is not entred into the Holy Places made with hands which are the Figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the High-Priest entreth into the Holy Place every year with Blood of others c. But once hath he appeared in the end of the World to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Heb. 8.1 c. We have such an High-Priest as is set at the Right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens a Minister of the Sanctuary and of the True Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not Man For every High-Priest is ordained to offer Gifts and Sacrifices wherefore it is of Necessity that this Man have somewhat also to offer For if he were on Earth he should not be a Priest for he hath nothing to offer nor was he to enter into the Holy of Holies seeing that there are Priests that offer Gifts according to the Law who serve unto the Example and Shadow of Heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God See thou do all things according to the Pattern shewed to thee in the Mount Heb. 9.7 c. Into the second went the High-Priest alone once every year not without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the People The Holy Ghost this signifying that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing Which was a Figure for the time then present in which were offered both Gifts and Sacrifices that could not make him that did the Service perfect as pertaining to the Conscience Which stood only in Meats and Drinks and divers Washings and Carnal Ordinances imposed on them until the time of Reformation But Christ being come an High-Priest of Good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made wich hands that is to say not of this Building Neither by the Blood of Bulls Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he entred once into the Holy Place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us For if the Blood of Bulls and of Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the Flesh How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself to God without spot purge your Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God Wherefore when he cometh into the World he saith Sacrifice and Burnt-offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared me Heb. 10.5 c. In Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure Then said I Lo I come in the Volume of the Book it is written of me to do thy Will O God he taketh away the first that he may establish the second By the which Will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all And every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins but this Man after he had offered one Sacrifice for Sins for ever sate down at the Right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his Enemies be made his Footstool The High-Priest in the Law stood and offered the Blood he brought with him and stood trembling and sprinkling till he went out But Christ after he had stood offering his own Blood sate down boldly having ended his oblation of Himself and began his Intercession and Advocation for others and his Protection and Rule over all things for
and the Gentile abolishing in his flesh the Enmity even the Law of Commandements contained in Ordinances for to make to himself of twain one New Man so making peace And that he might reconcile both unto God in one Body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby Blotting out the Hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us Col. 2.14 which was contrary to us and taking it out of the way nailed it to his Cross Inward State of Mind 2. As an Inward state of the Mind wrought by the Law and Truth of God in the Heart and Conscience Begetting in the Mind 1. A Conviction of Duty 2. A Conviction of Sin 3. A Conviction of Wrath. But no strength to enable to Duty nor free us from Sin or Wrath. A State of unwilling Passiveness and Subjection to a Law as to an Enemy for fear that will not suffer us to have our Will nor to escape Judgment A miserable State in which is no rest The Law commanding one way Lust haling us another way quite contrary Curse threatning to find us out every way The Law contrary to us and we contrary to the Law The Law is Spiritual but I am carnal sold under sin for that which I would I do not Rom. 7.14 but what I hate that do I And besides to make my Estate the more miserable I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into Captivity under the Law of Sin O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death From this inward state of Bondage we are not actually delivered by the outward Victory of Christ on the Cross as if it should purchase an Indulgence for us to sin without Control but this Victory is procured for us thereby that by the vertue of that general Conquest outwardly over all Sin Law and Death we might obtain through our Faith the inward Cross of the Spirit of God in our hearts for the particular Victory of Sin and Law and Death in our Regeneration They that are under the Law are as a VVife under a harsh Husband There are two waies for a Wife to be free 1. By breaking loose from the Bands of Wedlock in which case she is an Adulteress 2. By staying till her Husband be dead in which case she is free to marry in the Lord and is no Adulteress So there are two ways to be free from the Law 1. By illegal breaking loose from it and marrying to carnal Liberty miscalled Christian Liberty 2. Legal marrying to Christ when the Law is dead by crucifying and mortifying of Lusts The Law of the Spirit of Christ hath made me free from the Law of Sin Rom. 8.2 and Death From hence I collect Three Estates of men 1. Such as are alive to sin and dead to the Law Alive to sin I was alive without the Law once that is the Conscience was asleep Rom. 7.9 and I sinned freely without check of Law or Conscience thereby as if I had no Law nor Conscience at all 2. Such as are alive to Law and to Sin both that is Alive to Law the Conscience was convicted of sin by the Law and yet hath still a power and love to sin both struggling in the bowels of the Soul which is a shattered and broken Estate when the Soul hath a Love to sin which she knows to be a sin and condemned by the Law and her own Conscience This is to be slain by the Law For I was alive without the Law once Ro. 7.9 10 11. but when the Commandement came sin revived and I dyed and the Commandement which was ordained to Life I found to be unto Death For Sin taking occasion by the Commandement deceived me and by it slew me In this condition there is no peace All Distraction and VVar betwixt the Law of God the Law of the Mind the Law of sin and the Law of Members 3. Such as are dead to the Law and sin Dead to Law and alive unto God and Righteousness The Law of the Spirit of Life hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death That is the Law is subdued Rom. 8.2 and Sin is conquered and the Soul free from the Curse of the one and the Dominion of the other and at liberty to be the servant of God and of Righteousness They that are in the first estate are Sin 's Free-men They that are in the second estate are Bond-men to God and Righteousness and Slaves serving for fear of Death and so abstaining from outward Acts not inward Lusts Children of Hagar the Bond-woman They that are in the third state are Free-men of God and Righteousness as Sons serving God for Love Children of Sarah the Free-woman So it appears that there are great Mistakes concerning freedom from the Law Carnal Liberty to sin 1. By fancying a Carnal liberty to sin such are free-men to sin and wickedness which is a most deplorable Thraldom These men call themselves Saints holy in all profaneness and for God too by opinionative zeal of Enthusiasm and Seraphicism Metaphysically abstracted from all mixtures below and highly united and conversant with God in the Spirit Epicurizing in the mean while and making a God of the Flesh God seeing no sin in them his Children needing no Preachings Prayer nor Good-works but rapt up in the extasie of Faith and Love and absolute Assurance leaving poor Reprobates in the fetters of Law and torments of Sin and Damnation while they enjoy all Liberty and Pleasures in familiarity with God who affords them the Liberty of the Creature which they enjoy to the full as having the only true Right unto them and Sin not in all they do This may be called Antinomian Liberty under the pretence of Free-Grace and a Gospel-Spirit because Christ hath done all to their hands and therefore nor Sin nor Law nor Death can reach them sinning out their sin and so much the rather because where Sin aboundeth Grace doth much more abound Legal Perfection Ro. 7.5 19 20. 2. By satisfying themselves with a Legal Perfection only The Good they would do they do not but what they hate that they do and the Evil they would not do that they do And 't is no more they that do it but Sin that dwells in them and they cannot help it and they are excused because the Law of Sin in their Members is against the Law of their Minds and leads them captive whether they will or no unto the Law of Sin which is in their Members And so all is well enough because it can be no better And God is Merciful And in this opinion they continue a sinful and miserable life betwixt Hope and Fear Hearing and Praying and Communicating all the while and trusting to the Work done and in the End hope all is well and will be well And thus they look no farther still feeding themselves especially the Papists
Atheism being a canker in my Estate and theirs and a poyson to me and their Souls that I have not fed my self or mine at all or as I ought or provided for my self or them at all or as I ought that I have not taught my self or them at all or as I ought But especially let not an army of strangers and of miserable persons made so by me come in against me to rail and curse me or go to God with strong cries and tears to help them from the wrongs that I have done them or call for vengeance from Heaven upon me for the same O these are lowd and bitter cries O they rent the very heavens O they come up to the ears of God day and night O what should I do or whether should I go if these Fatherless Widows Strangers should come in against me which God forbid or if the very brutes and inanimate creatures should find mouths to clamour to men to God and to the world against me And all this while which is worse I should cry lowdest against my self in a wounded Conscience which who is able to bear Therefore what ever I do what ever I suffer let me not eat the bread that should nourish others and for want of which they curse and starve Let me not be cloathed with the fleece that should keep others warm and for want of which their nakedness is discovered and they die for cold Let me not shelter my self under the roof of another which should be his castle to save himself nor let me possess the goods or lands of others which they of right should use or enjoy In a word Let none be hurt lamed killed deformed oppressed robbed spoiled or undone by me let no such stain be upon my honour in this world nor no such clog upon my soul to press it down in the world to come But rather let me truly say to my comfort and credit Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken or whom have I defrauded I am innocent from the blood of all men I have endeavoured to get and keep a good Conscience in all things void of offence to God or Man which will bring me peace to my latter end and to all eternity O Adam Adam What inevitable wrongs are done by thee by the miseries and deaths brought upon all thy Race if not the sins by thy example at least the imputation for thy sake What inevitable damnation hast thou brought upon thy self and all men had not the second Adam procured salvation for thee and all men O sinful and cruel men What sins and miseries have you brought upon your selves your families and countries by making them to sin by making them to suffer in peace and war in plenty and want in health and sickness O all ye Oppressours Ranters Rebels and Tyrants How much is the world the worse for you How much is the Church the worse for you What waste and havock and spoil have beastly prodigal and barbarous men made upon the good creatures of God ransacked rifled and preyed upon by your pride and wantonness The first Adam lost all right The second Adam recovered all right God created all right and truth and the Devil created all wrong and falsehood These are the two principles of right and wrong good and evil SECT XXXII Collect. Moral Honesty not doubted of 2 Therefore though many revealed truths of faith are called into question and many natural causes are doubted of yet we cannot if we be in our wits make any just scruple of moral honesty no body can deny it he must put out the light of nature if he do which cannot be A spade must be a spade and honesty is honesty when all is done whether we will or no and goes through the world A true man is the only man when all is done that hath honour and conscience in him his enemies themselves being Judges So there can be no difference about honesty that there is and ought to be such a thing But what that thing is and where to find it what is Right and Truth and Wrong and False we cannot we will not agree but call Right Wrong Lyes Truth Evill Good Darkness Light and é contra Every Man will be in the right a common sin to flatter our selves in sin to preach of it praise it pray for it inveigh against evill commend good but act against it Every Man is as his phancy and passion guides him as his party and interest lyes so he judges so he acts so do States and Kingdoms so do Churches too What shall we do in this case how shall we know Right from Wrong that we may do right I answer 1. God hath shew'd it unto us in the light of Nature if we will open our eyes to see it there it is in the common principles thereof very plain 2. Princes from God have shew'd it unto us in their Laws taken from the Law of Nature for our temporal good 3. Priests from God have shew'd it unto us in God's Laws revealed by the Apostles and Prophets for our spiritual good For the Priest's lips preserve knowledg and God's Law is to be enquired of from their mouthes for the good of the Soul 4. Physicians from God have shew'd it unto us in their skill what is for the Body 5. Lawyers from God shew it unto us in their wisdom what is good good for our Estates But in all we are deceiv'd and lose the Right while it is before us holding the Truth in unrighteousness SECT XXXIII Therefore every Man must see with his own eyes Collect. 3. Use Reason and hear with his own ears and understand with his own heart as well as he can and God will help him Let the world know that to assert Infallibility is a cheat and to set up Supremacy is a cheat and to impose Antiquity in all things is a cheat But right Reason humble and unbiassed not excluding frailties is no cheat He that seeketh findeth he that asketh shall have and he that knocketh at Wisdom's gate shall enter in SECT XXXIV Two Guides God hath given to all Men. Reason of Nature 1. Reason of Nature in common principles Quaedam Jura non scripta sed omnibus scriptis certiora saith Cicero There are some Laws which are not written but they are more certain than all the written Laws in the world This is the fountain of Right and it cannot at the same time send forth sweet waters and bitter This is the Treasure which God hath committed to the charge of every one to keep and improve SECT XXXV 2. Equity of conscience Equity of Conscience in common Conclusions drawn from the pure Truths These must guide us when positive Laws fail us Nec omne quod honestum est legibus praecipitur For not every thing that is honest is commanded by the Laws The reason is because Law-givers are not Diviners and Prophets to fore-see every contingent
Salvation descends not on the Son is not entailed The original Right that Adam had was entailed but his sin cut off that entail and his Bloud was corrupt and tainted to all his Posterity and we are heirs to his guilt but not to his right as the Son of the tainted Father is heir to his Father's bond and burdens but not to his rights and priviledges We are all born in sin and by such our birth are all deprived of our right to Glory All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God SECT III. Purchase 2. Purchase or Buying so Jacob had a right to the Estate of Isaac and his Title was by Purchase for he bought Esau's Right for a Mess of Pottage Esau and Jacob had successively a right to the same Estate but not by the same Title Esau's was by Birth Jacob's by Purchase Among us the Title many have to their right for their Estates is by Purchase of such a Manor Land Lease or House Our Title to the right of Glory is not by Purchase for 1. Such a Purchase is unlawful Is the sale of Honour of it self unlawful and shall not the sale of Glory be much more Is it simony to buy a Living that can last but for a time and is it not much more to buy the Living that is everlasting 2. Such Purchase is impossible no summe sufficient can be raised to make that Purchase the whole World will not afford it What shall a Man give in exchange for his Soul if the whole World cannot countervail for the loss of it much less can it satisfie for the Salvation of it SECT IV. Desert 3. Deserts of Virtue Service or Works When Saul made David a Colonel he had a good right to that Office and his Title was his Deserts by his good Service done to the King and State by the virtues of his wisdom and valour he behaved himself more wisely and valiantly than all the Servants of Saul he had slain Goliah and diverse Philistins In the opinion of the Jews the Centurion had a right to have his Servant healed and his Title as they pleaded it was his good deserts and works For say they he loveth our Nation and hath built us a Synagogue Our Title to our right of Salvation is not by deserts service or works The World talkes much of Merits and Deserts and many flatter themselves with an opinion of them though daily they see themselves cast in that Plea For Deserts breed a Title to nothing but Honour a naked and empty Right that consists in having a Name or taking Place to matters of power and profit ineffectual SECT V. 4. Favour and Grace And the motive to that Grace only God or Man Favour So the King ex mero motu of his own free will grants a Boone so God grants the right of Salvation according to the good pleasure of his own will which is our Title thereunto Our Title is no base and low Plea but eminent and high not only of Grace but eminent Grace the highest and best Title creating Jus pingue the Best of Rights As our sin was exceeding sinful so our grace is exceeding gracious Hence St. John terms it Grace of Grace of his fulness all we have received Grace for Grace i. e. Grace not requested but freely granted Divines call it Preventing Grace Grace that fore-stalls all our desires we sue not for it pray not for it For a clear knowledg of this we are to understand that Grace is of two degrees 1. Upon the motion petition or suit of the party that obtains the Grace 2. Upon the proper motion of the Donor without all petition or suit of the Receiver This later is Free-Grace most gracious Grace God gave Abraham a Son that was Grace for Abraham was barren and out of hope for Children yet that was not Free-Grace but Grace upon request For Abraham made his prayer to God for a Son lest the Steward of his house should be his Heir God gave Abraham the Land of Canaan to him and his Seed that also was Grace for Abraham had no other title to it none by birth purchase or desert And that was Free-Grace without any prayer or suit of Abraham Christ healed the Centurion's Servant of the Palsie that was Grace yet not Free-Grace for he did it at the suit of the Centurion who came and worshipped and besought Christ to heal him Christ raised the Widows Son of Naim from death that also was Grace and Free-Grace for he did it without any petition or suit unto him upon pure compassion he had on the poor Widow his Mother SECT VI. From all that hath been said I may modestly gather that the Rights we have by Justification are exceeding many and great and the Title to those Rights is no way by Law not by Birth not by Purchase not by Desert but by the meer favour kindness and mercy of God SECT VII Reason 1 Because our Justification is contrary to our Condemnation our title to death whereby we are condemned is by works Condemnation for it is by sins For the wages of sin is death And by the offence of one many are dead Our title then to life whereto we are justified must needs be by Grace and so life must needs be a gift For if death be a wages and a payment due for sin then life must needs be not a wages nor a payment but a meer Gift and Favour For if things contrary have contrary forms then contrary Rights must have contrary Titles If our Right to die come by Law our Right to live must needs come by Grace So St. Paul reasons at large Rom. 5.15.16 c. SECT VIII Reason 2 Because all the Rights that come by justifying are Gifts Thy right of Liberty and Impunity Gifts of Resurrection and Glorification c. are all of Gift for they are not entailed upon us and therefore not by Birth nor sold unto us and therefore not by Purchase not let out therefore not by Works and Service but are all pure Gifts St. Paul opposes these rights to our penalties in Adam for sin Ro. 5.15 c. and in four Verses together for four several times he terms them Gifts Now all Gifts are acquired by Grace and the Donatary hath no other title than the Grace and Favour of the Donor SECT IX Reason 3 Because the Original Right of Justification is Impunity or Pardon For when God creates these Rights unto us Impunity we are in the state of sin for in that state we are born into the World And our first Right is impunity or pardon i. e. to be accounted righteous Hence our Justification is so frequently termed Imputation of Righteousness and Absolution from sin which two Attributes make but one and the same thing For they differ only in the term saving that Imputation of Righteousness is the better term because it is the term positive or term of access to
perspicere possint Cor Sapientiae Plaut Vitam ut vixissent olim in Adolescentia This is the reflex Act of the Understanding to think over again our old thoughts words and actions and bring them to the test saying What have I done then shall we see that Colloquintida that Mors in olla the death that is in the Pot the plague of our own hearts the secret Idol of abomination which we set up in our own Spirits and the sin that sticks so close unto us Then shall we be able to say Ro. 6.21 What fruit have we in those things whereof one day we shall be ashamed the end of those things is death What shall we do in the end thereof It will be bitterness in the later end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Wisdom 17. 11. Wickedness condemned by her own witness is very timorous and being pressed with conscience alwaies forecasteth grievous things for fear is nothing else but the betraying of the succour which Reason offereth And though a Man be otherwise never so undaunted as to look Death in the face having the heart of a Lion yet his own guilt shall tame his courage and make him a meer coward Lev. 26.36 I will send a faintness into their hearts and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them and they shall flee as fleeing from a Sword and they shall fall when none pursueth Occulto quatiente animo tortore flagellum The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart and failing of eyes Deut. 28.65 and sorrow of mind and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee and thou shall fear day and night and shalt have no assurance of thy life This is the Poet's Vultur Immortale jecur tendens foecundaque poenis Viscera nec fibris requies datur ulla renatis This is the fire of Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A drop of water to cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame Plaut Urit animum meum Poena autem vehemens multò saevior ullis Juv. Quos Caeditius gravis invenit Rhadamanthus Nocte diéque suum gestare in pectore Testem And as this Torment is great so Comfort is as rare as can be imagined Even the Peace of God which passeth all understanding This will satisfie a Man against all the World Senti de Augustino quid vis sola mea ne Conscientia non accuset Think then of me what you will so long as my own conscience doth not accuse me My witness is in Heaven and in my own breast I have comfort enough Cic. Nullâ re tà m laetari soleo quà m officiorum meorum conscientiâ The remembrance of a life well lead will bring a Man Peace to the end in the end and unto all eternity this goes along with him when all worldly comforts take unto themselves wings flie away from us and forsake us Lectulus respersus floribus est bona Conscientia A good Conscience is a Bed of Roses And upon this Bed this Pillow will I rest my head wearied with cares and griefs and there will I sleep secure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the reward of all my labours in the way of Holiness that I have peace within Heaven and Hell are seated in the Heart of a Man saith the Levantine Proverb Conscientia ante peccatum fraenum post flagrum Conscientia ante bonum calcar post consolatio Conscience before sin is a bridle afterward a whip Conscience before Good is a spur afterward is a comfort SECT VI. These Offices of Conscience are performed Before the Action 1. Before the Action The Conscience represents what will follow if such or such things be done And t is happy when we shall take such deliberation to prevent many sins and judgments that may follow SECT VII Instances As Peter Though all Men forsake thee yet will not I and yet he broke his word As Hazael when the Prophet wept and told him what horrid things he should do in ripping up women with child and burning Cities c. he abominated the thoughts of doing such cruel acts 2 Kings 8.13 saying Is thy Servant a dead dog that I should do such things Yet for want of solid perseverance he did those things indeed As Joseph who when tempted more than ordinarily by his Mistress kept his resolution bravely Gen. 39.9 saying How shall I do this great wickedness and so sin against God The Conscience fore-sees and fore-tells the sad consequences What will ye do in the end thereof it will be bitterness in the later end These things are sweet in the Mouth but bitter in the Belly There is Death in the Pot. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Bitter-sweet A pleasant bait with a deadly hook Extrema gaudii luctus occupat Nocet empta dolore voluptas You will rue for all this if you take not heed Young Man take thy full swing let loose the reins to a full carier but remember that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment a day of reckoning will come Do not put the day of death far from the do not make a League with Hell nor a Covenant with destruction saying The bitterness of death is past and the over-flowing scourge shall pass over me for it will come it will not tarry Thus there is a voice behind you yea within you saying This is the way walk in it Turn from the waies of wickedness pass by them and come not near unto them for fear iniquity procure your ruine A Harlot's mouth is sweet as the hony and drops as the hony-comb but her waies go down unto Hell and her paths take hold of destruction she is a deep pit and he that feareth not the Lord shall fall into it As a bird hastens to the snare and a fool to the correction of the stocks and an Ox to the slaughter not remembring that it is for his Life so shall it be with thee These and the like warnings of the Conscience are rare preventions of sins if hearkned unto or else they procure greater torments afterwards As Peter said to Ananias and Sapphira Why have ye lyed to the Holy Ghost As Abraham unto Dives Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and contrarily Lazarus evil things but now thou art tormented and he is comforted We fools counted his life madness but now is he numbred among the Righteous They shall look on him whom they have pierced and be in bitterness as one that is in bitterness for his first born They shall call to the Mountains to fall upon them and to the Hills to cover them from the wrath of him that sitteth upon the Throne This is the regret that shall be that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that worm of conscience that never dieth O! that Men were wise therefore that they would consider these
Fathers Sister Cons Mothers Sister Cons Fathers Brothers Wife Aff. Mothers Brothers Wife Aff. Wives Fathers sister Aff. Wives Mothers Sisters Aff. Downward Neeces Brothers Daughter Cons Sisters Daughter Cons Brothers Sons Wife Aff. Sisters Sons Wife Aff. Wives brothers Daugh. Aff. Wives Sisters Daugh. Aff. A Man may not marry Upwards his Mothers Grandmothers Great Grandmothers In Nature In Law Forwards his Brothers Neeces In Nature In Law Sidewards his Aunts Great Aunts In Nature In Law Downwards his Daughters Grandaughters Great Grandaughters In Nature In Law A Woman may not Marry in the Right Line Upward in the First Degree Fathers Father Cons Stepfather Aff. Husbands Father Aff. Second Deg. Grandfathers Grandfather Cons Grandmothers Husb. Aff. Husbands Grandfather Aff. Downward in the First Degree Sons Son Cons Husbands Son Aff. Daughters Husb. Aff. Second Deg. Grandsons Sons Son Cons Daughters Son Cons Sons Daught. Husb. Aff. Daughters Daug. Husb. Aff. Husbands Sons Son Aff. Husbands Daugh. Son Aff. Side Line Forward Brothers Brother Cons Husbands Brother Aff. Sisters Husband Aff. Upward Uncles Fathers Brother Cons Mothers Brother Cons Fathers Sisters Husb. Aff. Mothers Sisters Husb. Aff. Husb. Fathers Brother Aff. Husb. Mothers Brother Aff. Downward Nephews Brothers Son Cons Sisters Son Cons Brothers Daugh. Husb. Aff. Sisters Daughters Husb. Aff. Husbands Brothers Son Aff. Husbands Sisters Son Aff. A Woman may not marry Upwards her Fathers Grandfathers Great Grandfathers In Nature In Law Forwards her Brothers Nephews In Nature In Law Sidewards her Aunts Great Aunts In Nature In Law Downwards her Sons Grandsons Great Grandsons In Nature In Law Prohibitions to the Third Degree inclusively A Man may not marry his 1. Mothers 2. Sisters 3. Aunts in Blood or Nature in Marriage or Law A Woman may not Marry her 1. Fathers 2. Brothers 3. Uncles in Blood or Nature in Marriage or Law Permissions of Cousins beyond the Third Degree Briefly A Man may not marry in the Right Line any of his Mothers Grandmothers Daughters Grandaughters Side Line any of her Sisters Aunts Neeces Persons forbidden in the Right Line 15 in all 30. Side Line 15 in all 30. Briefly A Woman may not marry in the Right Line any of her Fathers Grandfathers Sons Grandsons Side Line any of her Brothers Uncles Nephews Persons forbidden in the Right Line 15 in all 30. Side Line 15 in all 30. A Postscript THose that have had the patience hitherto let them favour me a little farther for their satisfaction to read the Testimonies of some Ancient and Modern Divines who have either said the same things with me or else very like them or have given me hints at least to enlarge upon them Authorities I know by custome sound high and prevail much to vulgar perswasion But solid reason is of much more force in it self and prevails much more with intelligent and unbiassed Souls Examine well the scope of all and without prejudice and let the Learned correct qualifie expunge or add as their wisdoms shall prompt them with all Candour Hear therefore next to the Holy Scriptures what these Learned men do say Testimonia Laciniata The CONTENTS Peccatum Originale Lex Fides Duo Testamenta Fides Scripturae Nature Grace Absolute Decree Spirituale Sacrificium Superstitio Promissa Adamo Praedestinatio Meritum Perseverantia Satisfactio Praedestinatio Peccatum Originale Imputatio Labes Originalis Controversies Ceremonies Definitions and Determinations Scoffing and Railing Atheism Gravity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Covenants Testament New Covenant Correspondence of Covenants Sacrifices Decalogue Baptism Natural Law Law and Gospel Resurrectio Justitia Imputatio Fides Justificatio Remissio Imputatio Justification Imputed Righteousness Justification Original sin Weakness Generousness Elements Nonage of the Church Fanaticks Terrible representations of God Popular errors Fathers not all pure OEconomy of Moses decaying Signs Some jealous conceits of God's indifferency to the World Jewish Nation a Pattern for others Votum pro Pace Christian Religion Immanation of God Emanations of God Appetites of Man's Happiness Recovery Doctrines troubled Vulgar errours Discerning Party Primitive Terms Reformation A Postscript Old Covenant Gen. 2.17 IN that day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are in the Law to do them Deot 27.26 If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his Commandments and his statutes then shall all these curses come upon thee and overtake thee Deut. 23. Lev. 26.23 c. And if you will not be reformed by these things but will walk contrary unto me then will I also walk contrary unto you and will punish you yet seven times for your sins New Covenant 2 Cor. 3.6 Who also hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life 1 Cor. 10.1 c. I will not have you to be ignorant how that all our Fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the Sea and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the Sea and did all eat the same Spiritual meat and did all drink the same Spiritual Drink for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that follow'd them and that Rock was Christ Job 8.17 Luc. 10.24 The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ For I tell you many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye have heard and have not heard them Matth. 11 1◠Verily I say unto you Among them that are born of Women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist notwithstanding he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he Hebr. 7.19 For the Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in a better hope did by the which we draw nigh unto God Hebr. 8.6 Now he hath obtain'd a more excellent Ministery by how much also he is the Mediator of a better Covenant which was established upon better Promises Hebr. 9.15 And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of Death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Covenant they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator c. 2 Tim. 1.9 10. Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the World began But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel Act. 13.38 39. Be it known unto you therefore Men and Brethren that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from
offered for all and suffered for all that were saved before the Gospel 31. That by all this I do not affirm that all that were saved under the Law though in consideration of Christ did understand in what consideration Christ should be their salvation as Christians under the Gospel do but that they understood it darkly in their Elders and Superiours the Prophets of God and their Disciples the Judges of Israel who were also Prophets and the Fathers of several Ages of whom we read Hebrews 11. who being acquainted with the secret of Gods purpose were to acquaint the People with it so sparingly and by such degrees as the secret wisdom of God had appointed 32. That these things being thus premised I acknowledge the Act of God in dispensing in the execution of his original Law and bringing the grace of the Gospel into effect instead of it not to be the act of a private Person remitting this private Interest in the punishment of those sins whereby his Law was transgressed but the act of a Master of a Houshold or the Prince and Soveraign of a Common-wealth disposing of Mankind as his Subjects or houshold Servants But the sufferings of Christ were accepted of God to give him that Satisfaction as might move him in consideration thereof abating that debt of Punishment which we are engaged to by transgressing his Original Law to publish an act of Grace admitting all to remission of sins and right to everlasting life that will undertake to be true Christians 33. That still along in my conceptions upon this point I meet with the exact distinction between the two Covenants and Dispensations of God by the mediation of Moses and of Christ We read that Abraham did agree to the Promise and that his Posterity long time after when it came towards a performance did consent to leave Egypt under the Conduct of Moses and are said to be under the Cloud 1 Cor. 10 1.5 and to pass through the Sea and to be baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea and did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them which Rock was Christ All this while they had not a drop of water to wet them but the Waters were a wall unto them on both sides till they passed through the Red-Sea on dry ground being protected with a Cloud to cover their heads and their Enemies sank like Lead in the mighty Waters 34. That this therefore was the beginning of that Peoples engagement unto God which though shortly after they departed from at Marah yet being reconciled to God by his patience and goodness in fulfilling their desires beyond their deserts they reingaged themselves to God to obey him and keep the Sabbath Exod. 15.25 26. Ex. 16.27 28 29. until being come to Mount Sinai they received the Decalogue and afterwards the whole Law So we being redeemed from the Egypt of this World undertake to leave it under the conduct of Christ and hereupon our sins are drowned in the mystical Waters of Baptism 35. That this argues a correspondency and resemblance but no Identity and sameness between the two Testaments 36. That therefore I cannot but admire but the stream carries them which is strong too that Wise men and learned in the Scriptures should maintain that as the Testaments so the Sacraments are the same If so then the Kingdom of Heaven and the Land of Canaan are both one thing then Baptisme and the passage through the Red-Sea are all one then the Passeover and the Lords-Supper are all one then to believe in Moses for his conduct to Canaan and to believe in Christ for his conduct to Paradise are all one But Christ saith Ye believe in Moses believe also in me 37. That if setting aside the correspondence they make the engagement to God under Moses for the obtaining the Land of Promise one thing and our engagement to God under Christ for the obtaining of Heaven another certainly the immediate assurance of this and the immediate assurance of that are several things And if there be between the Old and New Covenant that correspondence which makes one the figure of the other they may as well be said to be one and the same as my Picture is the same with me because it is called by my name which cannot be But to say that the Sacraments of the Old Law do immediately figure or assure the same thing which the Sacraments of the Gospel do is the same thing as to say the Rest of the Land of Promise and the everlasting Rest of the kingdom of Heaven are both one and the same 38. That upon this ground St. Paul argues concerning the Gospel Deut. 30.12.14 from the words of Moses concerning the Law The Righteousness which is of Faith saith thus Say not in thine heart Who will ascend into Heaven Rom. 10.10 to wit to bring down Christ Or who will go down into the Deep to wit to bring up Christ from the dead But what saith it the word is near thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of Faith which we preach That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe with thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved For with the heart a man believes to Righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to Salvation The Argument is this That if Moses duly warned the Israelites that they have no excuse for not obeying the Law which he had put as it were in their mouths and into their hearts by his so frequent and plain teaching of them by Precept upon Precept here a little and there a little frequently repeated then if Christ as duly warn the Christians they can have no excuse for not obeying the Gospel which he had put as it were in their mouths and into their hearts by the Apostles preaching in season and out of season If therefore the profession of an Israelite by Circumcision ties him to the Law shall not the profession of a Christian who is the true Israelite by Baptisme and the Circumcision of the Spirit tye him to the Gospel Do therefore the names of a New Covenant or a New Testament signifie no difference between them or so little that they are one and the same in effect and that the one is comprehended in the other Consider well what hath been said and will be said to the contrary 39. That as to the Common salvation both of Jew and Gentile with and without a Law once more give me leave to shew that while they were under this dispensation there was another traffick driving under hand in dark and obscure terms between God and them for the happiness of the World to come to his Law written or unwritten for such reasons and to such an end and with such measures as he requireth for causes best known to himself 40.
to my Estate Honour or Relations which I am loth to endure I am Deceived 1. By all good Laws 2. By all bad Laws 3. By one Law in the same Law 4. By one Law in another Law 5. By on Law in all other Laws SECTION I. I. By all good Law Divine or Humane which is holy just and good 1. By all good Law pure spiritual and the very will of God Reason Because Lust would be a sole Law and would have none of these to be a Law Lust a Law therefore it opposeth all good Law It would rule alone over the whole Man and all he hath or doth and when controlled by God's will grows the more sullen and contumacious Our wills we say are our own and who is Lord over us And what is the Lord and what are Lords that we should not do what we lust We would be Gods to our selves and Lords to our selves and walk after the imaginations of our own hearts and that continually doing what is right in our own eyes Reason Because the Law is a Restraint Law a Restraint I will endure no Bridle nor Curb the Law by my good will shall not have its will of me My Will will endure no bounds nor enclosure I would walk at large and never be stopt I would fulfil the lusts of my flesh in every thing that pleaseth me and crown my self with Roses before they be withered and let no delights pass over me untasted say the Law what it will can I not live a quiet life I strive against the Law because it strives against me for I am contrary unto it and contraries do alwaies oppose each other I am not able to endure it Before the Law came darting upon me I sinned in quiet and thought my self safe and lived freely but now I am disturbed and crossed in my desires and threatned if I do so or so I do not like it I do not call this a life I am dead to what I was before But still have a stout heart and I will not be born down if I can help it by words nor by a few blows Thus the Law would determine my Will as it ought but my Will would determine it self as it ought not Therefore I do well to be angry because I am angred and to be cross because I am crost This is my pride and the naughtiness of my heart All Law I see is against my Will and therefore my Will shall be against all Law And so whereas I deceived my self before I had a Law now I deceive my self much more after the Law is come upon me Thus I am a fool by willing to be lawless whereas if I were wise I should be guided as all wise men are by a Law Thus I am a slave by willing to be a Lord whereas if I were wise I should be commanded as all wise men are by a Lord whose service is perfect freedom My First Parents were of this humour they would eat because they were forbidden I will make and worship Images because they are forbidden I will fare best upon Fridaies because I am bidden to fast If a Book be called in I will therefore buy it I will therefore meet in private Conventicles because I am commanded to be present at publick Assemblies Every thing naturally resisteth that which doth oppose it The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh for both these are contrary to each other Contraries do inter-intend each other by Anti-peristasis Denial sharpens my desire The Law puts a difficulty upon my Action and threatens a kind of danger but my generous sin so anciently and nobly descended will not be out-braved shews her mettle will be under no Coward will not be blankt by the Law Besides this Law of God I find another Law in my members Law an equivocal word Ro. 7. warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin which is in my members For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man which is the law of my Mind Law of Mind but I hate the Law of God after the outward man which is the Law of my Flesh Law of Flesh With my mind I serve the Law of God with which the law of my Mind doth very well agree Law of God but with my flesh I serve the law of Sin Law of Sin to which the law of my Flesh does very well agree I know that in me that is in that part of me which is my Flesh dwelleth no good thing but in me that is in that better part of me which is my Spirit dwelleth many a good thing For there to will that which is good according to the Law of God and the law of my own Mind is present with me but how to perform that which is so good in my Flesh I know not In my Mind I am Spiritual and free unto Righteousness but in my Flesh I am carnal and sold under Sin and a slave to Iniquity Ro. 6.16 A servant of obedience unto Righteousness in my Spirit unto life but a slave to disobedience unto sin in my Flesh unto death By the infirmity of my Flesh I have yielded my Members servants to unrighteousness and to iniquity but by the strength of my Spirit I have yielded my Members servants to Righteousness unto Holiness While I am the servant of Sin I am free from Righteousness and while I am the servant of Righteousness I am free from Sin That which I do in my Flesh I allow not in my Mind and that which I do in my Mind I allow not in my Flesh What I would not in my Spirit that I do in my Flesh and what I hate in my Spirit that I do in my Flesh By which I do plainly consent to the Law that it is good and if I yet do the contrary it is not the Law of God which is in fault nor yet the law of my own Mind for both prompt me to do the godly deed but it is Sin that dwelleth in me that is in fault it is my Carnal appetite or Fleshly lust that is in fault That when to will good by my Rational faculty is present with me to will evil by my Irrational faculty is present with me and I suffer it so far to prevail upon me that I cannot find in my heart to do that good Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor And I can find no reason for it but merely I will do worse though I know better because I will stat pro Ratione voluntas Now then if the case be thus what shall I say I say It is no more I but Sin that dwelleth in me And what a case am I in all this while I go the high way to destroy my self by the wilfulness of my own Carnal will in suffering my self in my worser part to prevail over my self in my better part which
himself This is his original Right whereby he was not only morally righteous but had a legal right over the Creatures Ergo much more over himself All other rights whereby he enjoys Houses Lands or Goods are improper to Man alien and forreign not natural but positive grounded upon humane Contracts Now for a man to be restrained from his proper Right that he cannot or may not have propriety possession or usufruct of himself but is forced to become the propriety possession and usufruct of another by selling or letting or losing the free-hold of himself this is true slavery Hence the Civil Law describes slavery to be subjection Contra naturam dominio alterius and Servus dicitur nullius Juris Against Nature for a man not to be his own but another's man and to have right to nothing not so much as to himself When Subjects have not the property of their Goods they count themselves slaves If he be rightly stiled a slave that hath not property in any goods much more is he a slave that hath no property of himself Constraint â—o base Actions VII Constraint of a man to vile and base Actions is true slavery For as Restraint from good makes slavery so Constraint to evil makes slavery out of measure slavish Hence the Israelites were slaves in Egypt constrained to make Bricks and Pots of Clay The Prodigal was a slave to the Citizen to feed his Swine and yet not to be sed with them The Possessed in the Gospel were slaves to Satan and forced often by him into the fire and water Put all these three together and they shew the full Nature of slavery that is bondage of Spirit restraining Man from his several properties and constraining him to their several contraries The use of all is to shew thee thy Error Thou complainest of Temporal slavery it is a false and counterfeit slavery the Spiritual slavery is the true slavery To feel the burthen of that and complain of the misery would argue a good increase of God's grace in thee and if God's grace free thee from that slavery then art thou free from all the World which God grant The CONTENTS The Sinner habitual TITLE XI Of the subject of Slavery THE subject of Slavery Who is a true slave the Sinner The Sinner habitual He that committeth sin is the servant of sin To commit sin is not to commit one single act of sin for the godly have their falls and surprizes of sin But habitually the course and practice of sin such an one is termed a sinner The extent of the Sinner is universal whosoever he be though otherwise never so free by Birth State or Tenure yet if he be an habitual sinner he is the servant of Sin The Jews alledged their freedom by Birth as they were the Children of Abraham and never in bondage to any man yet for their sins they were in spiritual bondage saith Christ David hinted this saying Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may praise thy Name Psal 142.7 What Prison could this be but the spiritual prison of Sin Christ hinted this saying The Spirit of the Lord hath sent me to preach deliverance to the poor c. Luc. 4.18 What poor how bound in what Fetters c. even the Sinner fast bound in spiritual bonds St. Paul tells the Romans that they had formerly been slaves voluntary slaves by yielding their Members as instruments of Unrighteousness from sin to sin Ro. 6.20 and were very free from Righteousness that is slaves to sin for freedom from Righteousness is the true slavery Sin is a Captive to Satan who is a Warrener and layes snares for Vermin What snares are Riches but such whereby men fall into divers foolish lusts and drowned in perdition and led captive by the Devil according to his will The CONTENTS Restraint from proper End Restraint from proper Guide Restraint from proper Act. Restraint from proper Rule Restraint from proper State Restraint from proper Right Captivity Constraint to base Actions TITLE XII Of the Reasons of Slavery THE Reasons why the Sinner is a Slave are according to the seven Cases of Slavery Restraint from proper End I. Because the Sinner is restrained from his proper end which is True Happiness For by the Law of God the sinner is deprived and disabled from all those priviledges of Eternal Joy and Glory whereof the Saints are capable For as it is the Glory of the Saints to enjoy the presence of God to see his face and know him as he is So the Misery of a Sinner is to be an Exile or out-cast from God never to see his face nor know him as he is Gal. 5.21 As by Man's Law a Bastard hath no Inheritance in Earthly Kingdoms so the Sinner hath no inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven For they that do such things shall not inherit c. But the end of the sinner is Torment his Wages Everlasting Death and Pain Go ye Cursed c. Restraint from proper Guide II. Because restrained from his proper Guide which is a Right Spirit The guide of the sinner is the Flesh he is led by it and a debtor to it he is put on by it upon every beastly service The Pride of the flesh to dishonour Parents Wrath to murther Lust to commit Adultery c. So silly Men and Women are laden with sins and led away with divers lusts The guide to the sinner is Satan he leads his lust as when he possesseth the Body he carries it and moves it so when he Masters the Soul he leadeth it captive as he pleaseth For the great and famous Master-pieces of Villany are acted by men led on by the instigation of the Devil Judas was the guide to them that Crucified Christ but Satan was his guide for he entred into him twice first for his resolution when he bargained and sold his Master secondly the execution of the Treason after the delivery of the sop Ananias sells his estate and keeps back part thereof when Satan had first filled his heart Acts 5.3 The sinner is made blind by Satan that he might go for his God and be his guide 2 Cor. 4.4 The God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not III. Because restrained from his proper Act i. e. his Will Restraint from proper Act. The sinner hath a Will yet not a free Will but a Captive Will He hath the faculties of a Natural Will but cannot actuate that faculty to perform the proper acts thereof by choosing the good and refusing the evil But rather he acts quite contrary by choosing the evil and refusing the good which is not Liberty and Will but restraint and want of Will As to take Error for Truth is not Understanding but want of Understanding so to choose evil for good is not will but want of will For because God is the proper object of the Will that heart that cannot choose the
good hath no will at all As because Light is the proper object of seeing that Eye that cannot see the light hath no sight at all But as a blind man whose eyes are covered with a Film hath the faculty of seeing for he hath a Soul and organs of sight for he hath eyes but not the sense of seeing for he doth not see so the sinner hath the faculty of Will for he hath a Soul and the organ of Will for he hath a heart but not the Act of will he doth not will for his heart is hard and strong as the Scripture termeth it harder than the Neather Mill-stone The Regenerate have the first Act of the will to good but they fail in the second they cannot perform it Rom. 7.18 To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not The sinner hath neither the first Act nor the second not a will to do good much less to perform it for to will evil is not exactly evil but an act contrary thereto for which we have no name IV. Because Restrained from his own proper Rule Restraint from proper Rule i. e. the Law of God The Law of God is no Rule to the sinner for he will not be ruled by it nor can he enjoy the benefit of it he opposeth the power of it and will not have it The Carnal mind is enmity against God Rom. 8.7 for he is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can he he hath disabled himself from keeping it by making the Law impossible to him and himself impossible to the Law But the Sinner is over-ruled by the Will of the Flesh which orders him at pleasure and carries him captive to the Law of sin and sin being contrary to the Law of God must needs be a Law of Slavery for God's Law is a perfect Law of Liberty God's Law is a Royal Law but Sin 's is a Tyrannical Law and every Tyranny is Slavery V. Because Restrained from his proper State to be a Person Restraint from proper State Sin puts man from the Person of man When God formed him after his own Image Sin transformed him after the Image of a Beast and the Scripture brands him with the name of a beast profane a dog Cast not that which is holy unto dogs Mat. 7.6 Mat. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps cloathing but inwardly they are Ravening Wolves Herod called a Fox Go tell that Fox c. I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men i. e. with railing Jews Chrys Theoph. Antichrist termed a Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns Satan the Author of sin called a Serpent or Dragon The Sinner in lower terms sunk to the dead legally dead in sin Let the dead i. e. Sinners bury their dead As Sin is a dead work that goes for no work so Sinner a dead person that goes for no person Restraint from proper Right VI. Because restrained from his proper Right i. e. the propriety of himself Is not Owner Master of himself Sin rules over him as a Lord over a slave Captivity Three waies a man loseth the Right over himself and becomes a slave by Birth by Captivity and by Sale Psal 51. 1. By Birth in sin I was conceived in sin and in iniquity did my Mother bring me forth For as the Rights of the Father so his Losses are conveyed to his Children by birth 2. By Captivity Captivity makes a slave of whom a man is overcome Ro. 7.23 of him he is brought in bondage carried captive to the law of Sin 3. By Sale he sells himself to sin Ahab sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. I am sold under sin A sale made by Adam and all his Posterity Constraint to base Actions VII Because constrained to vile and base Actions As to be born in sin is true Bastardy so to commit sin is an act so base as it is all Baseness For as true Nobility consists only in Vertue so true Baseness consists in Vice Gen. 3.14 A Serpent is a base Creature goes basely creeping on his belly fares basely feeding on dust God's Curse An emblem of a Sinner A base service to serve a Beast to feed Swine and not be suffered to eat with them so is a Sinner A menstruous cloth is a base rag such is our righteousness stained with sin How filthy then is our sinfulness The vomit of a Dog is filthy such is Sin as when the Dog returneth to his vomit and the Swine that is washed to her wallowing in the mire The particular acts of Ambition Avarice and Filthiness such as that they must not be named Eph. 5.3 The CONTENTS Sin Satan TITLE XIII Of the Lord of Slavery THE Lord of slavery is Sin Servant of sin Of which sin The Lord of slavery Sin not of that he commits for that is actual sin which is the Sinner's work but the sinner is the servant of sin Original 1. Because sin Original is the lord and makes him a slave to work sin Actual Original sin is indeed in the godly not as a lord Sin shall not have dominion over them for they are not under the Law but under Grace But that sin is in them as a slave over whom they domineer They mortifie and crucifie it and make it a dying sin They that are Christs do crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts But Original sin is in the sinner as a Lord an Inmate that domineers doth mortifie and crucifie the sinner till he be destroyed 2. Because Original sin restrains him from all his several properties from his proper end Eternal happiness from his proper guide a right Spirit from his proper act of choosing good and refusing evil from his proper rule the Law of God from his proper state a person after God's image from his proper right the propriety and possession of himself and constrains him to actual sins which are vile and base acts If the sinner be thus restrained to be a slave then Original sin that restrains him is his Lord because whatsoever restrains is Lord and Master over him that is restrained 3. Because Original sin reigns over the sinner She is a Tyrant usurping soveraignty and hath her Laws whereby to command him those laws are but several lusts i. e. her arbitrary will and pleasure Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof In the godly it reigns not for they obey it not but in the sinner it reigns for he obeys it his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether it be to Sin or Righteousness If then thou obey Righteousness thou art a free servant but if Sin a bond-slave and the more willingly thou obeyest the more slave thou art II. But the Sinner's chief Lord is Satan The Prince of the Air Eph. 2.2 Satan the
a Manuduction unto Christ Observe it then that all this while there was no other way of life given either in whole or in part beside the Covenant of Grace And therefore there was no inconstancy either in God's Will or in his Acts only such was his Mercy that he subordinated the Covenant of Works and made it subservient to the Covenant of Grace and so to tend to Evangelical Perfection And he that truly understands and considers what the Covenant of Works requires and how unable he is to perform it it being though ordained for righteousness and life an occasion of sin and death must needs see just cause to flie from Mount Sinai unto Mount Sion or from the Covenant of Works made with Adam to the Covenant of Grace made with Christ and to admire the unspeakable Wisdom and Mercy of God in suffering the Law to enter in Rom. 5.20 21. that the offence might abound that where Sin aboundeth Grace might much more abound That as sin hath raigned unto death even so might Grace raign through Righteousness unto Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law then which was good was not made Death unto me God forbid But Sin that it might appear sin working death in me by that which is good Rom. 7.13 that sin by the Commandment might become exceeding sinful Is the Law then against the Promises of God God forbid For if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin Gal. 3.22 c. that the Promise by Faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe But before Faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the Faith which should afterward be revealed Wherefore the Law was our School-master to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by Faith But after that Faith is come we are no longer under a School-master For ye are the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus The obscurity of this Great Point of Theology which I am forced to be so long upon new Notions arising continually is chiefly occasioned as Origen imagineth by the indistinct Aequivocation of the Word Law in the Epistle to the Romans let that place be viewed where it is said The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 6.2 3. The Aequivocal Word Law for what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit May we not modestly say that the Word Law ascribed to the Concupiscence of the Flesh is not properly but abusively given As it is also in another Place Rom. 7.21 23. where he saith I find a Law that when I would do good evil is present with me for I delight in the Law of God after the Inward Man But I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of sin which is in my Members For if Lust be a Law and do bind it hath no Right so to do because Lust is not of force by God's Prime Institution from whence Law hath its virtue but by the occasion of his Justice in punishing the Fall of our first Parents thereby And hence is this Original way of sinning from our Lusts which we are led away with and deceived by though in themselves they are not naturally sinful but became exorbitant against reason and peccant upon forbidden objects by our own consent of Will and God's just Punishment therefore But when the Law of the Spirit of life is clearly meant to be the Gospel preached and alone having the Promise of the Spirit The Law that is weak because of the Flesh that is condemned by the flesh of Christ must needs be understood to be a carnal Law from whence Salvation can never be hoped But that Law by which Justification is had by them which walk after the Spirit and not after the Flesh is Spiritual whether it be the same for the Law of Nature perfected by Christ for the Covenant of Grace or diverse as commanded by Moses for the Covenant of Works When these things are rightly distinguished the difficulty whereof St. Peter as well as Origen complains is taken off for when the Apostle saith Rom. 2.14 That the Gentiles which have not a Law are a Law unto themselves doing by Nature the things contained in the Law shew the Work of the Law written in their hearts It is manifest that although we usurp the Appellation of the Law of Nature indifferently St. Paul doth abstain from giving the Name of a Law to that Light that is in us when he says the Gentiles had no Law but were a Law to themselves because the usurping of the Name Law belongs to the solemn Imposition of that name in the Law of Moses and to the Law of Nature and of sin but by Trope and Figure The Law of Moses is carnal in all men the Covenant of Works The Law of Christ is Spiritual in the Faithful before under and after the Law the Covenant of Grace Therefore the Institutions of Nature in Moses's Law are Scriptures and the Word of God no less than the Gospel but not binding as delivered by Moses but by Christ by whom they were made perfect Neither doth a Believer receive the Moral Law at the hands of Moses but altogether at the hands of Christ Though it be the same Law for Matter and Substance yet in the lowest grounds that was delivered by Moses yet Believers are not to receive it as the Law of Moses but of Christ in the highest perfections thereof For when Christ the Son of God comes and speaks himself Moses the Servant of God must hold his peace as Moses himself foretold A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your Brethren like unto me Act. 3.22 Him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you And therefore in the Mount Tabor when Moses and Elias were departed and had given place the voice from Heaven came and said Math. 17.5 This is my Well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye Him And though heretofore God hath spoken divers wayes and in sundry fashions to the World by his Servants the Prophets Heb. 1.2 yet now in these last dayes he hath spoken to us by his Son and this is he that we must trust to And they that believed in Moses must believe in Christ and they that believed before Moses did believe in Christ and they that believe after Moses must believe in Christ and so to the World's end For there never was nor will be
all these So the Church hath her Pupillage and Tutorage and also her Majority and full Age. However God revealed himself at sundry times and after divers manners by his Servants to the infant Church in former Ages Heb. 1.2 yet in these last and riper daies he hath more fully revealed himself by his Son Who are kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 10 11 12. ready to be revealed in the last time of which Salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the Grace that should come unto you searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signifie when it testified before-hand the Sufferings of Christ and the Glory that should follow unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven which things the Angels desire to look into And these all having obtained a good report through Faith received not the Promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect SECTION II. Jews a childish People The Jews are reckoned a childish People who though they had perpetual Oracles Miracles and Prophets among them as evidences of God's Presence and Protection yet they fell of shamefully to Idolatry A Prodigy GOD being daily in their eye and as it were handled by them in Egypt at the Red-Sea by a Pillar of Fire by night and of Cloud by day in the Wilderness giving them the Law and Manna from heaven c. in the Tabernacle and in the Temple when they came into the Land of Canaan That all along they should distrust his Goodness and Rebel against him But after seventy years Captivity that sore and lasting Calamity for all their Idolatries they began to come to their Wits arriving at some degree of maturity and growth The Temple so destroyed and now so proudly re-edified and their Enemies still increasing upon them and God withdrawing his visible presence from them by little and little and no Angel nor Prophet appearing to comfort them they were taught that there was some higher Worship and more Spiritual happiness intended for them than the Law did promse And they began by degrees to elevate their minds to seek him in his proper dwelling place of Heaven and to rely upon Coelestial and Eternal Promises as appeared by the constancy of their Sufferings under Antiochus even to Martyrdom in the Hope that their Fathers the best of them had That they might obtain a better Resurrection Heb. 11.35 Thus their Affections were weaned by degrees towards the dawning of the Gospel and the Day-spring from on high which was shortly to visit them All hopes of Temporal happiness failing them being put under the Roman-yoke also which they so much abhorred the Wisest among them did look up higher than this World and waited for the greater Consolation of Israel who was to be the Hopes of all the ends of the Earth The Glory of the Scepter being at last departed from Judah first ravished from them by one of the Limbs of the Macedonian Lion and afterwards grasped by the Talons of the Roman Eagle after this deadly gripe the Royal Stock was quite extinct and the Office of Aaron perplexed and all things in Church and State so blended contrary to their Original Institution that they were at their wits end as to any Temporal recovery which made the Understanding Party look up higher but the Generality were sorely abused by their Leaders and Teachers Then came John the Baptist the Preacher of Repentance to the Poor people and to the Scribes and Pharisees that generation of Vipers warning them to flee from the Wrath and to embrace the Mercy that was to come and to bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance and not to say any more in their hearts That they had Abraham to their Father for God was able out of the Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham not to trust in the Temple for not a stone shall be left upon a stone and the Axe was laid to the Root of the Tree and every Tree that brought not forth good fruit was to be hewn down and cast into the fire Also Christ was to come with his Fann in his hand who would throughly purge his floor and gather his Wheat into his Garner and burn up the Chaff with unquenchable fire And except men were born again and except their Righteousness did exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they should never enter into the Kingdom of heaven but must be baptized not with VVater but with the Holy Ghost and with Fire Many mighty Miracles were done by Jesus Christ and his Disciples in all the Regions round about so as it was never heard of or seen before since the VVorld stood At this hearing and seeing of these VVonders the People were amazed and all sorts began to enquire saying What shall we do The Law and the Prophets were until John Luk. 10.16 since that time the Kingdom of heaven is taken by violence and every man presseth into it Thus was the way of the Lord prepared and his paths made streight Every Valley was exalted and every Mountain and Hill brought low Luk. 3.5 c. and the crooked paths made streight and the rough waies made smooth and all flesh was to see the Salvation of God And the Axe laid to the Root of the Tree and every Tree that brought not forth good fruit was to be hewn down and cast into the fire So the Jewish Church was in its Minority under the Law as under a School master which taught them Elements and gave them Corrections i. e. Elements of civil Conversation with others and sobriety in their own persons Principles of Morality as forbidding of Murther Adultery Theft c. sitting them thereby for the prohibition of Anger Malice Lust c. in the New Law of Christ who saith Math. 5.28 Whosoever looketh on a Woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart And he that hateth his Brother is a Murtherer And from Usury he teacheth to lend freely looking for nothing again and from Oaths not to swear at all but let their Yea be Yea and their Nay Nay and from Shadows and Ceremonies to bring them to Substantial and Spiritual worship and from Circumcision with hands in the Flesh to Circumcision without hands in the Spirit Coll 2.11 in putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh by the Circumcision of Christ All this Service was Servile as 1. To be subject to positive Laws against the Laws of Nature and forced to Punishments for breaking of them An ignorance or neglect of a Statute was expiated by a Sacrifice or Sin offering but a wilful breach by Presumption was
then of Earthly holy things Christ's Blood dedicates the Holy of Holies the Sacrifices of Beasts were sufficient but for the purging of Heavenly things with better Sacrifices than these that is the blood of Beasts might and did suffice to Consecrate the Earthly Tabernacle but no Blood but that of Christ's could Dedicate the Heavenly Sanctuary for the reception of Souls and Bodies made holy for into that place no unclean thing could enter Heb. 9.23 But Christ being entred into Heaven and appearing there in the presence of God as a Priest to consecrate the place and those that should enter into it he is become a Priestly Advocate with the Father to make propitiation for our sins and not for ours only 1 Joh. 2.1 2. but for the sins of the whole World And all this was done at Once and by one offering Dying but once One Offering and entring into the Holy place to offer but once to put away sin and from Heaven he shall appear the second time without blood to offer for Sin because all is done away Heb. 9.28 to give his people the full benefit of that Offering by vindicating them from Death and enstating them in eternal Life who look for this Salvation and wait for the Time of the Restitution of all things when at his Coming they shall lift up their heads because their Redemption draweth nigh and they love his Appearing 2 Tim. 4.8 All the Legal Sacrifices were imperfect 1. Because shadows of perfect good things to come 2. Because they were offered year by year The same Sacrifice recurring year by year made by the same persons and so for many Ages could never be perfect nor make the Comers thereunto perfect for if they had been perfect or could have made the Comers thereunto perfect they would have ceased to be offered because the Worshippers being once purged should have had no more Conscience of sins Where Health is fully recovered and settled the Medicine needs not to be iterated till Relapses come Heb. 10.3 But in those Sacrifices is a Remembrance again made of sins every year i. e. When the Solemn Fast-day came about wherein those Sacrifices were to be offered the High-priest did lay both his hands upon the head of the Scape-goat and confess over him all the Iniquities of the Children of Israel Lev. 16.21 And when the year before all their Sins were laid upon the head of the Scape-goat and banished into the Wilderness yet in the next year and so successively every year after another Goat must be banished because the People contracted new sins to be forgiven But in this great Sacrifice of Christ all Sins of all People being laid upon his head and shoulders who only was able to bear them are fully remitted for ever so that there needs no more Sacrifice for sins For he shall finish the Transgression and make an end of sins Dan. 9.24 and make Reconciliation for Iniquity and bring in Everlasting Righteousness SECTION IV. Christ offers his self in Heaven Heb. 10.5 And because it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins therefore Christ cometh into the World to do it Psal 40.6 saying Lo I come to do thy will O God He had a Body therefore fitly prepared for that Heavenly Sanctuary wherein he offered up himself to God As if he had said unto his Father Seeing the Legal Sacrifices please thee not therefore Lo I come to do thy Will i. e. to offer thee such a Sacrifice that is wholly according to thy good will and pleasure that every one might be freed from the guilt and punishment of all his sins and in the end have Everlasting life And to this end I have offered my Body so perfected to Immortality as the Septuagint read it and I have addicted my self wholly and for ever to the Service of the Heavenly Tabernacle as the Servant addicted him to his Master by having his Ears opened and bored to the Door as the Hebrew reads it that I might do thy Will for ever Because in Burnt offerings and Sacrifices for Sin thou hast no pleasure nay because thou wouldst endure them no longer therefore I come into this thy Heavenly Sanctuary to do thy Will and please thee with the oblation of that Body which thou hast prepared me wherewith to serve thee in thy Sanctuary for ever in whom thou art well pleased Heb 9.13 Heb. 10.8 By the which Will we are sanctified by the offering of the Body of Christ For that was God's will and not the Legal Sacrifices Christ reigns in Heaven After Christ the High-priest had offered this Great Sacrifice of Himself in the Temple of Heaven he did not stand daily ministring nor offering the same Service Heb. 10.12 but after he had offered this one Sacrifice for Sins for ever sate down at the Right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his Enemies be made his Foot-stool He hath offered so sufficiently that he needs never offer more he hath done his work of Conquest and sits down to triumph over his Enemies and to expect their subjection to him For God saith unto Christ Sit thou on my Right hand until I make thine Enemies thy Foot-stool Psal 110.1 It appears therefore that CHRIST is our great High-Priest mediating our Salvation 1. By Dying to confirm God's Testament a Sacrifice slain on the Cross 2. By offering the Blood of that Sacrifice being quickned through the Spirit unto God in Heaven A Man therefore he must be that his blood might be shed and a God that by the power of his Divine Spirit his blood might be offered for the sins of the World For every High-Priest is taken from amongst Men and ordained for Men in things pertaining unto God Heb. 5.1 2 c. that he might offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for Sins who can have compassion on the Ignorant and them that are out of the way for that he himself is compassed with Infirmities And by reason hereof he ought as for the People so also for himself to offer for sins and no man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron So Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Heb. 2.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest to make Reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that he himself suffered he is able to succour them that are tempted And forasmuch as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death Heb. 2.14 that is the Devil The Order of this Priesthood of Christ was according to that of Melchisedec who was a Type of
confirm Testament 1. To confirm a Deed of Testament made by the Eternal God 2. To expiate all Sin and Misery But it must be offered first I and so it will very shortly it must not lie long here you may be sure This Blood must quickly be carried to Heaven never to be spilt more but offered up for an Attonement before the Mercy-Seat of God for ever 'T will be but three daies and this Flesh and Blood shall live again and after fourty daies it will ascend into the Temple of God This Blood will consecrate and dedicate that place for our flesh and blood to enter into This Blood will be a new and living way to the Mercy-Seat of God for us to have free recourse unto at all times in this life for Grace sufficient to help us in the time of all our need This Blood will cry aloud for Mercy and speak better things than the Blood of Abel which was for Revenge But it must be offered first and it will be accepted No Sacrifice can be complete till it be offered First slain then laid on the Altar then offered up in part or in whole so was Christ first slain then offered up to God Well then I will be as good as my word I will mourn and fast and pray a while but I must not think that this will do my business Sackcloth Ashes Hard lodging and fare Whippings Pilgrimages Reliques Watching Fasting Alms and Oblations c. make a great shew and pomp of Devotion and some of them are good as they may be used But I must have a settled eye upon the Power of Godliness and not upon the Form only I must take heed what I do in the Service of my God lest I offer the Sacrifice of Fools In a word I must look to my heart in all my outward actions It will not serve my turn to read hear or see the history of my Saviour's Passion or Resurrection written preached and acted or represented in Books Sermons and Scenes and for me thereupon to hang down my head like a Bull-rush and grow sad upon it for a day or two I must think of an every daies duty of dying daily and of mortifying and crucifying my self all my life long not by Whipping c. but by Self-denial and cutting off my Right hand or my Right eye or whatsoever is near or dear unto me Self-examination Reformation Zeal Faith Love Hope and such Spiritual duties must be my work all the daies of my life For Bodily exercise profiteth little or nothing but Godliness and a New Creature What a fool was Simon Stylites that lived so long standing between two Walls and Dominius Loricatus that gave himself 540000 stripes in one Lent I look upon my Saviour's Crucifixion as do the Literalists and formal Devotionists but Sursum corda is a good hint to me I must look higher The History I believe but the Mystery and Power of his Death I look after It satisfies not me at all if I had been born and laid in a Manger and crucified and slain with Christ if I had been his Brother and suckt the breasts of his Mother it would not have profited me at all except I did believe the Word of God and keep it for then I should be his Brother Sister and Mother indeed If I had been so happy as to have known him in and after the flesh so as to eat and drink with him and see his Miracles and hear his Doctrine and cast out Devils and heal Diseases as he did in his Name yet from henceforth I will know him no more after that but after a better fashion His Sufferings and Death are past and gone from hence now I know him as he liveth in the power of an endless life All the scandal of the Cross is taken away though he was crucified through weakness yet he liveth by the power of God Break my heart no more with grief and hardships of the outward Cross but let me love and love again and delight my self in the inward Cross whereby the World is crucified unto me and I unto the World Then stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples when I am sick of Love I look upon the Love of God in making and confirming his Promises to me in Christ I make my Covenant with my God to forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil This is the state of Grace this is to be in Christ and a New Creature I have looked down to Christ's Sufferings on Earth but now I will look up more to his glorious Actings in Heaven viz. His Sacerdotal entrance his solemn oblation of Himself his Session at the Right hand of God his Intercession his Kingdom over all in protecting his Church and bringing all his Enemies under his feet his spiritual Scepter and Kingdom in our Hearts beating down all the strong holds of Sin and Satan No need therefore of Crosses Pictures Whips Thorns Nails Reliques c. These may work for a while being in sight upon the outward Man to move admiration and sorrow but no constant Faith and fixed Hope and Love as do the virtue of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings which is the true Power of Godliness that brings comfort to the end and in the end and to all Eternity The Flesh I bear it record takes a kind of pleasure in grieving pitying and beholding the shadows of these things but the Spirit of Faith goes higher and rejoyceth in the evidence and demonstrations of the Substances themselves The Letter and Form alone profiteth little it is the Spirit and Faith that must give the true Life Christ saith Except we eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of God we have no Life abiding in us because his Flesh is meat indeed and his Blood is drink indeed but withal he tells us That these words which he speaketh are Spirit and Life Call we therefore in the last place and hold there to the True work of a Christian To crucifie a Lust to kill a Sin to die to sin to rise from Sin and live to Righteousness I whine not at the Passion I weep not for him but I weep for my self and mortifie my Members which are upon the Earth I remember Christ's death and take the Sacrament upon it as the only Memorial that Christ hath ordained I believe and bear in mind the history of the Passion but my main care is to conform thereunto The Mystery is more to me than the History the Spirit than the Letter The Letter is low the Spirit is high Carnal Devotion is in Images and Reliques but Spiritual Devotion is in Mortification and Self-denial The one is the form the other is the power of Godliness We preach and live too low in the bare History in verbal Masses in superstitious Rites These are some of them very good when contained within their own spheres but alwaies very low and mean and never come up to the height
perfect temper again Propension in Nature to its proper state 3. Because there is a great propension in Nature to return to its proper estate by casting of what is heterogeneal thereunto So Medicaments are subservient to Nature by removing obstructions but Nature it self and the inward Archeus being released and set at liberty works the Cure The whole Creation groaneth and longeth to be delivered Ro. 8.21 Bodies bent out of their natural place and violently forced from their proper position of their parts have a spring of their own and an inward strong tendency to return to their posture again This is Motus Restitutionis as if the Air be driven into a narrow compass it hath a spring or Conatus to come back to its proper state So a stone thrown upwards hastens to fall to its Center Sin is a violent and preternatural Estate Returning to God and Righteousness is Motus Restitutionis Liberationis a motion of Restitution and Liberation The Elater and spring in the Soul being quickned and enlivened by God's Grace hath a natural Conatus to return to its proper Estate I delight in the Law of God after the inward man but I see another Law in my Members Ro. 7.21 warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members This is called Spirit the Mind of the Spirit Inward Man Law of Mind an Innate propension of the Soul awakened to return to its genuine condition as it is intellectual and free to its ancient Nature When the Spirit of God promised to Believers acts from the Spirit or Soul of the Faithful there is 1. An Assent to yield unto God 2. An Acceptation to receive his Promises 3. A Concurrence to work with him Here is no external force or violence offered to the Soul to free it from a state which it would alwaies continue under but a sweet and gentle Call to return to its proper state which the Soul it self longs for Where the Spirit of the Lord is 2 Cor. 3.17 there is Liberty The Freedom of the Spirit is the Soul 's acting from an inward principle and spring of its own Intellectual Nature Longing to be restored and endeavouring with God's Grace to return So that there is not a mere outward Impulse of the Spirit of God but an inward Concurrence of the Spirit of Man The Soul is not like a Boat tugged or driven by Oars or Winds but it goes on Secundo flumine according to the genuine Current of its own intellectual Nature with the help of the gentle gale of the Divine Spirit Genuine nature of the Spirit 4. Because it is the genuine Nature of the Spirit to do that which is agreeable to the Spirit and pleasing to God of whose Nature the Spirit doth partake Vertue and Honesty are homogeneous Vice and Wickedness are heterogeneous There is in the Spirit Cognatio quaedam cum Deo A certain kindred with God 5. Because it is natural to the superior Faculties to be predominate Superior Faculties predominate They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Lordly nature and made to rule and the inferior Faculties are of a Servile disposition and made to obey It is then but Jus Postliminii for Equity Light and Reason to be re-inthroned in my Soul there to command and suppress the Exorbitant affections that rise up against it This is the design of God in the Gospel to restore us to the rectitude and perfection of our own Beings Wherefore he calls us off from the perishing vanities of this World so infinitely below us not to debase or pollute our Spirits by them not to gratifie our lower Faculties the Brute that is in us but the sublimer Angel above The outward objects are but Baits to the outward relishes and sensations of the Body The outward World is like an enchanted Palace seemingly ravishing but a mere Spectrum or shadow that which pleases is the Vital energies of our own Spirits to Vertue and Goodness 6. Because we are not merely Passive Active Cooperation but an active Co-operation is required in us The Spirit of God in Nature that Spiritus intus alens produceth Vegetables and Minerals beyond Art and Industry yet it doth not work absolutely unconditionally omnipotently and irresistibly but requireth certain preparations and dispositions of Plowing Sowing c So the Spirit of God requireth some preparations and dispositions in our Spirits forasmuch as it may be stirred up or excited in us or resisted and quenched by us Unless the Husbandman stirrs up and plows the ground the Spirit of God in Nature will not give any increase So we are bidden to plow up the Fallow-ground of our hearts that is to do our earnest endeavours to work out our own salvation to fight the good fight of Faith to run the Race and to enter in at the strait-Gate Be not therefore merely Passive but move and co-operate with God Fac quod in te est do what is in thy power to do and God that gave thee that power if thou use it will give thee more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do but breath a desire and long to come to God and God will meet thy desires and draw thee after him with the Cords of his Grace and Love It is a never-failing Rule He that hath shall have more full measure pressing down and running over shall God give into his bosom But he that hath not from him shall be taken away that which he seemeth to have For all Motions unto Sin and from God are unnatural retrograde excentrick unkindly forced cross unprofitable dishonourable SECTION III. Of Christ's Victory over Law Hitherto I have spoken of the Inward Victory over Sin by the Resurrection and Spirit of Christ Now in the second place of the Victory attainable by the same Power over the Law by Christ his Victory over the Law Where Sin is there is alwaies a Law and where there is no Law there is no Transgression The Law is considered two waies Outward Covenant of Works 1. As an outward Covenant of Works by which Death is to all that break it in Morals or Ceremonials And all men are naturally under the Law and are convinced thereby of Sin and Death and are therefore in bondage and fear of death all their life long without mercy This outward Letter or Covenant of Works is conquered by Christ's Death on the outward Cross Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 being made a Curse for us as it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith That we might be free from the Obligation to the Commandements which were not good Exod. 20.25 Christ having broke down the middle-wall of Partition Eph. 2.14 15. that was between the Jew
quarrelling and sit still and consider these points we should in time understand them sufficiently by our own experience better than they do that dispute of them daily We are prone to nothing but evil Object Flesh is prone to evil by exceeding the bounds of reason Solut. but Reason it self tends another way With my mind I serve the Law of God Rom. 7.25 Rom. 7.22 23. but with my flesh the Law of sin I delight in the Law of God after the inward Man but I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin that is in my members Adam's faculties were corrupted so are ours Object Both true in a safe sense and if these safe senses were admitted Solut. all would agree but there is though not acknowledged Pride Interest and uncharitableness in the way that obstructs this universal good that would be both in Church and State But who can help it it must be born only wise Men and honest Men will be no slaves SECT III. We are made mortal in Adam Not actually by dying in his body and with his body Corol. 2. All mortal in Adam for we sprang from his body before dead but causatively by descent from his made mortal body As he sinned for himself so we sin for our selves Reason And as he died for himself so we die for our selves But his sin was not ours and his death was not ours but only the cause of our sin and the cause of our death Mortalis gignit mortalem Immortalis gignit immortalem Servus gignit servos Nobilis gignit Nobiles Fortes creantur fortibus Morbosi creantur à morbosis Infamis non gignit infamem Sed Peccator non gignit peccatorem Doctus non gignit Doctum Innocens non gignit innocentem In true and safe senses some Natural some Jural A Mortal begets a Mortal An Immortal begets an Immortal Cum grano salis Deus de Deo Servants beget servants Free-Men beget Free-Men Nobles beget Nobles Strength begets strength Weakness begets weakness Infamous doth not beget infamous But a sinner begets not a sinner A Learned Man begets not a Learned Man A virtuous Man begets not a virtuous Man SECT IV. Corol. 3. Righteous in Christ We are made righteous in Christ i. e. Accounted Reason 1 Christ's righteousness was not individually ours nor is our righteousness individually his nor can any person's qualities be communicated to another Reason 2 Nature made us in Adam Grace makes us in Christ Bodies were in Adam not Souls Souls are in Christ not Bodies One Man's will is not really in anothers Sin is in Soul not Body Death is in Body not Soul Righteousness is in Soul not Body We are born of the Bodies not of the Souls of our Parents SECT V. Corol. 4. Immortal in Christ Reason We are immortal in Christ by Christ's Body Christ's immortality was not individually ours as our immortality is not individually his But we are made immortal by his immortality 1 Cor. 15.22 As in Adam we all die so in Christ all are made alive Souls were not in Adam's Soul Souls are not in Christ's Soul Bodies are not in Christ's Body Our persons were not in Adam's person Our persons are not in Christ's person Our bodies seminally in Adam's body i. e. not to act in Adam but fast asleep in him as their cause Our Souls not at all in Adam's Soul but created apart and infused by God So the acts of Adam's body were not the acts of our bodies So the acts of Adam's Soul were not the acts of our Souls So the acts of Christ's body were not the acts of our bodies So the acts of Christ's Soul were not the acts of our Souls SECT VI. Every Individual body naturally acts for it self Every Individual Soul naturally acts for it self Corol. 5. Reason Every Individuum acts for its self Ez. 18. And is rewarded or punished for it self The Soul that sinneth it shall die Fathers eat sowre grapes Children's teeth not set an edge Every mortal individual is mortal for it self Every immortal individual is immortal for it self Every individual is good for it self Every individual is bad for it self So in a right sense 1. We are made Sinners by Adam's sin 2. We are made Righteous by Christ's Righteousness 3. We are made Mortal by Adam's mortality 4. We are made Immortal by Christ's Immortality If any Man can express these things better let him a God's Name I shall be glad to learn One Touch more and then I have done Adam's body the root and seed of our bodies Adam's Soul not the root nor seed of our Souls Adam's body acted for it self Adam's Soul acted for it self Our bodies act for themselves Our Souls act for themselves Ergo Adam's virtues were not ours Adam's vices were not ours Adam's rewards were not ours Adam's punishments were not ours Rules Unusquisque habet judicium pro semetipso Unusquisque habet voluntatem pro semetipso Unusquisque habet passiones pro semetipso Unusquisque habet actiones pro semetipso Every one hath a judgment for himself Every one hath a will for himself Every one hath passions for himself Every one hath actions for himself Individuals communicate not their actions or passions but are distinct as their persons Sin is not Nature Nature is not Sin Righteousness is not Nature Nature is not Righteousness The Close Natural actions of Body and Soul reach not beyond the person that acts them Moral actions extend not beyond the person that acts them Jural actions do extend beyond the persons that act them for punishment or reward by act of Law or Grace c. SECT VI. Once more and use it not I beg leave to review the triple distinction that I made of a Sinner Sinner Legal 1. A Sinner Legally is a transgressor and offender against the rules of the Law in not doing that right whereto the Law binds him and he that doth not right according to the Law he is unrighteous and a person unrighteous is a sinner Such sinners were the sinners of the Gentiles who lived in idolatry such a sinner was the Woman who washed the feet of Christ with her tears Joh. 7.37 and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed them and anoynted them with oyntment for she was an adulteress Such a sinner was the Woman taken in Adultery in the very act and was therefore brought by the Scribes and Pharisees unto Christ to be stoned to death John 8.3 4. And this kind of sinner who is a transgressor of the Law is opposed to the person who is legally righteous by doing that right which the Law requireth SECT VII Sinner Moral 2. A sinner Morally quoad mores is a Trespasser offending against the rules of Good manners of Humanity Equity Charity Mercy and Courtesy not dealing handsomly or kindly not doing that right whereto the rule of
Equity and Charity obligeth him but is churlish uncharitable unmerciful and unkind And he that doth not right according to the rules of Equity and Good manners he is unrighteous and a person unrighteous is a sinner Gen. 9.22 Such a sinner was Cham who seeing his Father's nakedness told his two Brethren without This fact was a sin for it was punished with a heavy curse of perpetual slavery to him and his heirs yet this was no legal sin for there was no Statute Law in being which forbad that fact but it was a moral sin against the rule of Good manners for the Son to tell of his Father's infirmity 1 Sam. 10.27 Such sinners were they who despised Saul and brought him no presents This fact was a sin for the Trespassers are thereupon called the Children of Belial yet this was no Legal sin against any Law of Moses but a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners and Common custom for Subjects to despise their King and bring him no presents 1 Sam. 25.10 Such a sinner was Nabal who churlishly answer'd David and deny'd him relief and his Servants for which he is censured such a Son of Belial that a Man cannot speak to him yet this was no Legal sin against any Law but a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners that a Man of a great Estate should be so unthankful as to deny a little provision to such persons as had not only done him no hurt but much good in securing him and all that he had Such a sinner was the wicked Servant who when his Lord had forgiven him ten thousand Talents Math. 18.28 would neither forgive nor forbear his fellow-servant who owed him but an hundred pence but arrested him and imprisoned him for it This fact was a sin for the Lord was wroth and revoking his former pardon delivered him to the Tormenters till he should pay all that was due unto him yet this was no Legal sin against any Law for the Law allows every Creditor to sue for his debt but was a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners for him to whom his Master had forgiven a debt of a thousand Talents to exact from his fellow-servant a debt of an hundred pence And such sinners were the Priest and the Levite who seeing a Man lye in the way stripped wounded and half dead passed by on the other side This fact of theirs was no Legal sin against any Law but a Moral sin against the rules of Equity Humanity Mercy and Courtesie And this Moral sinner who is a trespasser against the rules of Equity and Good manners is opposed to the person who is Morally righteous by doing that right which Equity Humanity and Charity require Such sinners will the Damned be found at the day of Judgment when they shall be convicted and sentenced for not giving food to the hungry nor drink to the thirsty nor clothes to the naked c. which are not Legal sins but Moral against Equity Charity and Mercy SECT VIII 3. A Sinner Jurally quoad Jura is one who is a Quasi-Trespasser i. e. a miserable or piteous person who hath no right or not that right which he had or might or should have had but is debarred or deprived of that right which by Law Equity or favour is commonly allow'd to others and is doom'd or condemned to suffer those pains and losses which are commonly inflicted upon transgressors commonly used in like cases He that hath no right may be called unrighteous and he that is unrighteous is a sinner Yet a Quasi sinner is not a sinner actually as the two former were as if he had done any act of a sinner or had sin inherent in him but he is a sinner passively being put into the state of a sinner to whom sin is imputed and being made obnoxious to be offended and afflicted as if he were really an offender and a sinner For it is not any act of his own that makes him a transgressor or puts him into the state of a sinner but either the act of the Law which justly imputes unto him the sin whereof some other is guilty or the act of some adversary who unjustly imputes unto him that sin whereof neither he nor any other is guilty but calumniates and criminates him falsly vide Gen. 4 11. Gen. 19.15 Exod. 34.7 Num. 14.18 Such a sinner is a Bastard who being no transgressor against the Law is by the Law made a Quasi-Trespasser and deprived of his Birth-right and debarred from that inheritance which by the common course of custom belongs unto him For the poor Bastard is condemned for a sinner before he is born before he hath done any good or evil before he hath stirr'd in his Mother's womb because his conception being unlawful and sinful doth by an act of the Law render his Parents sinners Legally and himself a Quasi-transgressor or a sinner Jurally And by the Law of God the Bastard lost not only his Birth-right but also his right of Assembly to him and his heirs for ten Generations during which time they stood as persons excommunicate Deut. 23.2 debarred from entrance into the Congregation of the Lord. Such a sinner is an Alien Forreigner or Stranger inhabiting a Countrey where he is disabled and debarred from the priviledges of inheritances Assemblies and Societies and other common Benefits of the Law which the People of the Land enjoy and consequently he lives in a state or condition which is usually inflicted on sinners for some sin So the Romans Greeks and other Nations living in Judaea the Jews accounted and called sinners because they were Aliens and Strangers who had no right to the Lands and inheritances in the Kingdom of Israel nor to the Assemblies Congregations and Ceremonies of Moses which were by the Law appropriated and entailed to the Nation of the Jews for in this Jural sense the word Sinner is taken frequently in the Gospel especially where it stands adjoined with Publicans See Math. 9 10. Math. 11.19 Mar. 2.15 16. Luc. 5.30 Luc. 15.1 And by the Law of God the Ammonites and Moabites were cast into the condition and state of sinners for ever Deut. 23.6 Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy daies for ever i. e. They shall be for ever unto thee Quasi-trespassers Such a sinner is a Bond-Man a Slave though he be a villain or slave born who is no actual transgressor against any Law yet by the Law of Nations is made a Quasi-trespasser being wholly decapitated and depersonated from the common condition of a humane person to be an odious cursed and detestable Creature living as it were in the state of a Beast wholly disabled from having any right at all no right of Assembly to consult no right of Testimony to bear witness no right of a Testament to make a Will no right of inheritance to enjoy any Estate And by the Law of God the Gibeonites were cursed into
an hereditary bondage to be drudges about the Temple Now therefore ye are cursed and there shall none of you be freed from being Bond-Men Jos 9.23 and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God Such sinners are all they who are made heirs to the misery of their Parents those transgressors whose punishment the Law makes hereditary to pass upon themselves and consequently to descend unto their Children As the Sons of Achan Jos 7.24 25. who for their Father's Sacriledg were stoned to death in the Vally of Achan And the seven Sons of Saul who for their Father's cruelty were hang'd in the Hill before the Lord 2 Sam. 21.9 And the Sons of Gehezi 2 Kings 5.25 if he had any who for their Father's bribery were to be heirs of his Leprosy And all Mankind who for the transgression or Legal sin of Adam are made Quasi-trespassers or Jural sinners to be afflicted with death and mortality For by one Man's disobedience many were made sinners Rom. 5.19 i. e. Quasi-trespassers or Jural sinners to lose the right of Paradise and Blessedness And this Jural Sinner is opposed to an owner Lastly such sinners as are oppressed by force fraud or colour of Law who are criminated by calumny and suffer death by an unjust Sentence as Bathsheba and Solomon in case Adonijah had prevailed for the Kingdom had been made sinners 1 Kings 1.12 Otherwise it shall come to pass when my Lord the King shall sleep with his Fathers that I and my Son Solomon shall be counted offenders Such a sinner is a Man who in dangerous times when terrible ones watch for iniquity is made an offender for a word Is 29.21 And with all Religious reverence be it written such a sinner was Jesus Christ who though he be very true God and true Man the truest and justest Man that ever lived who did no sin nor spake no guile yet he suffered as a sinner For He poured out his Soul unto death Is 53.12 and was numbred with the transgressors He was made a Quasi-transgressor and so handled God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin i. e. he who really was no sinner 2 Cor. 5.20 was made a Quasi sinner and was afflicted as a sinner Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us i. e. he who really was not a curse was made a Quasi-curse and was afflicted as if a cursed person These three several sinners the Legal the Moral and the Jural are not three opposit sorts of sinners so contradistinct that the one is repugnant to the other or that one sense excludeth the rest but they are different degrees of sinners whereof the one may be without the other and yet so consistent that they may all concurre in one and the same person For Christ was a sinner Jurally only but no way Legally nor Morally And Dives was a sinner Morally only not Legally for we read not that he was a transgressor against the Law nor Jurally for he had great Possessions But in the sight of God Men are sinners all three waies Legally Morally and Jurally being transgressors against the Law and offenders against Equity and Aliens Forreigners and Strangers to the rights priviledges and inheritances of the Kingdom of Heaven whereto Man as Man and as the Son of Adam hath no right interest or claim but is born and stands in the state of a Quasi trespasser and Quasi sinner Adam was created upright i. e. not a transgressor Legally nor a trespasser Morally and he was created an owner for upon his creation God gave him a humane right of Dominion over Fish Foul and Beasts But by virtue of his creation he had no Supernatural or Divine right for he had no right to Paradise and the Blessings thereof For when Adam was created Paradise was not yet planted but after the creation of Adam follow'd the plantation of Eden and God by putting Adam into Eden did further justify him for unto that right which was at first given him by Nature God superadded another right by Grace in setling and seating him in Paradise And this right was hereditary to him and his heirs But Adam by his transgression in offending against the Law of Paradise made himself a transgressor and all his heirs Quasi trespassers For the punishment or curse upon him for his transgression was his ejection and mortality which ejection and mortality descended also to all his Posterity For according to God's Contract with Adam and according to the rule of Equity and Reason sueing the Blessing was hereditary to him and his heirs therefore the curse also became hereditary to him and his heirs This affliction of Man or his ejection from Paradise and his mortality that now he is born to no divine inheritance but is born an out-cast from God's Blessing born a mortal Creature that must necessarily die this is the condition that makes Man a Quasi-trespasser and puts him into the state of a Jural sinner and this Quasi-trespasser or Jural sinner is the Man who in the next verse shall be justified by the Faith of Jesus Christ For the Person who is the proper subject of Justification is Man considered as a Jural sinnner not excluding his legal or moral sins from which he is also justified yet they unto his justifying are but accidental for although legally and morally he were never so righteous yet unless he be justified he cannot be saved for he is still a Jural or Quasi sinner 1. Because he is not a sinner actively by committing any act of sin as were the two former sinners who were offenders legally and morally by acting against Law and Equity but he is a sinner passively by suffering that loss or pain which is inflicted on him who is a sinner actively For the Verb Sinning is sometimes put passively for suffering as Gen. 31.39 That which was torn of Beasts I brought not unto thee I bare the loss of it where the Hebrew word is Chata i. e. I sinned for it 2. Because he is not a sinner really in whom sin is inherent but putatively to whom sin is imputed and who being innocent is reputed a delinquent and put into the state of a sinner that he may suffer that affliction which is the usual punishment of a sinner As the Beasts which the Law declared unclean were not in themselves unclean really and inherently but imaginarily and putatively for uncleanness was therefore imputed unto them that they might be forborn as if they had been really unclean 3. Because the fact which constituteth a Man thus a Quasi-sinner to be miserable and wretched is no act of his own but is either the act of some Law which justly imputeth unto him that sin whereof some other is guilty or is the act of some adversary who unjustly imputeth and chargeth upon him that sin whereof he is not guilty
still very shy to be kept they can hardly be lookt upon or handled they are desultorious and slippery and long to be gone from us But God sticks by us and delights to dwell with us A Servant abideth not in the house Joh. 8.35 but the Son abideth for ever Wisdom invites and courts all to her embraces O ye simple how long will ye love simplicity and ye fools delight in scorning Get wisdom get understanding wisdom shall preserve you understanding shall keep you Put her on as a Robe as a Crown as ornaments of gold and pretious stones and keep her as thy life God is not lapt up in the Ephod for the Priest alone nor wrapped up in the Diadem for the Prince alone All are equally concerned to enjoy God as well he that groveleth on the dunghil as he that sits on the Throne as well the dweller in the smoky Cottage as the Lord of stately Palaces The Gospel is preached to every Creature his Messengers are equally sent to the Captains and Scribes as to the common Souldiers that sit on the Wall God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Christ disdained not the society of Publicans and Sinners and the Kingdom of Heaven is pressed into by all sorts and the violent take it by force SECT XIII Good lovely 3. Because Good is lovely and amiable to all and praised by the worst because Nature teacheth all Men to reverence Virtue though they choose the contrary It striketh an awe into those that scorn it A Man of God a Magistrate carries such gravity in his Countenance and habit and Majesty in his life and Calling that his presence will daunt the stoutest Atheists and Ranters and stop their oathes and lewdness till Cato be gone they start at him and beg of him to depart out of their coast and pray him not to come among them to torment them The preaching of Paul of Justice and Judgment made Felix tremble Bonum tunc vincit cum laeditur tunc intelligitur cum arguitur When good is most opposed she conquers most and is then understood when she is reproved so hard a thing it is to loose the Instinct of Nature which when put by will come on with the greater force to our greater conviction and shame in refusing that good which is so obvious and easie to be practised and hunt after that evil which is more remote and painful to be performed Herod was troubled to cut of John Baptist's head because it was unjust and dishonorable yet for his Oath 's sake and those that were with him and to please a wanton Damsel in Point of Honour falsely so called he commanded it to be done contrary to his conscience and was troubled after he had done it when hearing of the famous works of Christ he cryed out it was John the Baptist that was risen from the dead Christ's innocency evicted Pilate's heart while his tongue condemned him saying to the People Be it as you require And yet he could not but say I find no fault in this Man The malice of Tyrants raged against the Martyrs to kill them while their innocency acquitted them even in the Judgments of their murtherers fain would they have spar'd their lives if they would but conform to their idolatrous courses so contrary to nature for an Idol is nothing there is no reason in Nature for it nor in many other things which unreasonable and unnatural Men presume to do Wicked Men are glad when they can get companions in their sins and glory most when for fear of torments they can bring godly Men over to their ungodly courses thinking thereby to strengthen themselves in their sin and to salve their own sores and lull the loud cries of their conscience condemning them for what they do What Traitor ever praised Rebellion and what Devil will not commend a Saint Let me die the death of the Righteous saith the most profane and let my last end be like unto his yet they will not give themselves leave to do that which in reason they allow to be good and just so strongly are Men confuted by themselves and so powerful is the Law of Nature in all Men. Besides what satisfaction ever had any wicked Man in his wicked courses Eat drink and be merry take thine ease let loose the reins to all licentiousness beat at every bush crown thy head with Rose-buds before they be withered taste of all the delights of the Sons of Men will this do in the midst of laughter the heart is sorrowful Vanity of vanities saith even Nature it self all is vanity and vexation of Spirit Nothing can fill the heart but God nothing can comfort but a good conscience Lastly to make all sure remember that undeniable principle of Reason mentioned in the first Book and first Title of the first Volume to be written with Letters of Gold and to be engraven in the Rock with the point of a Diamond for ever which is this That every Action that is in our Power to do or not to do is imputable to us and may justly be imputed to us by God or Man But on the contrary every Action that is not in our power to do or not to do is not imputable unto us nor can be justly imputed to us by God or Man That is not of debt to the hurt of any but of Grace it may be imputed for their good For favours may be imputed where they are not due But sins and plagues can never be imputed but only where they are due The Rule is unquestionable It is impossible rightly to lay the guilt of sin upon any Man unless he by his own individual Act of will hath made himself guilty of the transgression of a known Law If this be true then consider what rightly follows Vide l. 7. T. 3. of Christ's feudal Kingdom Sect. A publick person c. SECT XIV Argumenta Laciniata Aculeata 1. God pardoned Adam's sin upon his repentance Ergo he suffered not for it any more than a temporal death which was threatned him how then shall his Children be unpardoned and suffer any more than a temporal death threatned in Adam to all his posterity 2. Our Birth is involuntary and without our knowledg how then born in sin involuntary and unknown except God by decree included our knowledg and wills by interpretation How can these things be No being no life no Action no Understanding no Will. Then we must charge God who makes us consent before we were or could consent 3. Our will was fast asleep in its causes The cause of our will is God's will not Adam's will The Soul is immediately created and infused by God Ergo was not in Adam's Soul 4. God did not punish the Devils but for their own most perfect choice why are Men punished for no choice 5. If Adam had notice of the Law what notice had we
the Law to our selves whereby we do by nature the things contained in the Law This is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gatherer and Preserver of prime natural reasons of immediate or mediate Revelations of acquired wisdom by Arts and Sciences especially Laws of daily experience and observation from all which as from a Fountain should flow all the actions of life but that Passion Humour and Fancy under the name of Conscience and Reason hurry us into their actions quite contrary SECT II. 2. To urge or prompt to do according to the Law in the conscience To urge A vehement protrusion a binding of conscience to do good and an abhorrence or reluctancy from evil loathing as the stomach all that is contrary to it St. Paul was thus urged to his duty 1 Cor. 9.16 Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel Thus the Prophet Jeremiah though much disheartned in so much that he had thoughts of silence and speaking no more in His name for the which he was so derided yet he recollects himself and his conscience thrusts him forward to do his duty against all discouragement For the Word was in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones Jer. 20.9 and he was weary with forbearing and could not stay Job 32.18 c. Thus Elihu said of himself I am full of matter the Spirit within me constraineth me My belly is as wine which hath no vent it is ready to burst like new bottles I will speak that I may be refreshed The Apostles that were witnesses of Christ could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard Acts 4.19 20. St. Paul was a debter to the Greeks and Barbarians to preach the Gospel in season and out of season to become all things to all Men that by all means he might gain some Acts 20.23 Ro. 13.5 1 Cor. 10.28 Ps 39.3 Gen. 39.9 He went bound in the spirit to Jerusalem not knowing what thing should befall him there We must obey for conscience sake Eat not for conscience sake My heart was hot within me at last I spake with my tongue Gen. 39.9 Joseph was restrained by his conscience when he said How shall I do this great wickedness and so sin against God Balaam had this conscience in him when tempted by Balak Num. 24.13 If Balak would give me his House full of silver and gold I cannot go beyond the Word of the Lord to do less or more If doubt be made of this Man there can be none made of St. Paul who when his Friends besought him not to go up to Jerusalem for fear of bonds answered Acts 21.13 What mean ye to weep and break mine heart for I am ready not to be bound only but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Was he a reprobate that said Si scirem Deos mihi condonaturos homines ignoraturos adhuc peccare erubescerem propter peccati turpitudinem What can a Christian say or do more if he be as he should be as good as his word If I were sure that God would forgive me and that no Man were privy to my sin yet I would blush to commit it for the filthiness thereof And surely the Mistresses of our vile affections are so ugly that we cannot kiss them if we did but view their deformity we should loath them And if we would observe the beauty of Virtue we would be ravished therewith for the waies of Wisdom are pure and pleasant The Conscience naturally suffers not to do otherwise than she suggests unto us and as naturally it doth loath a foul action although the carnal Will be fierce upon it as Hector said of Achilles in his violent passion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O that my conscience would give me leave to do that I long for even to devour thy flesh chopt in pieces But I can get no leave from conscience to do so as my revenge would have me There is an unwillingness in the rational will to do the will of the Flesh she is more noble of her self than to serve base lusts which was born to serve the Queen of Reason She is free to do good as agreeable to the Spirit Rom. 7.22 23. I delight in the Law of God after the inward Man but I see another law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members SECT III. To register 3. To register or record the intrinsecal and extrinsecal actions of the whole Man 1 Cor. 4.4 St. Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet am I not thereby justified The Brethren of Joseph were not conscious to themselves of the Money put into their sacks if they had done it they must have known it but Non est in conscientiâ nostrâ it is not in all our consciences we cannot find that we have done any such thing Gen. 43.21 if it were in our hearts we should find it We know not who hath put our Money in our sacks 1 Cor. 2.11 Eccles 7.21 From hence the Conscience is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Man knoweth the things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him Thine own heart knoweth that thou thy self hast cursed others Here things are written with a Pen of Iron and with the point of a Diamond and with a beam of the Sun Ps 51.3 1 Kings 2.44 that he that runs may read them My sin is ever before me As Solomon said to Shimei Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to Coarguit conscientia ipsos sibi ipsis ostendit The conscience of wicked Men shews themselves to themselves A Court of Record is kept in their own breasts by God's own Vicegerent SECT IV. 4. To testifie for us or against us To testifie The Conscience is a thousand witnesses Their Consciences bearing witness This is our rejoycing Ro. 2.15 2 Cor. 1.12 Ro. 9.1 Jâ—b 16.19 Prov. 14.15 Jer. 59.12 even the testimony of our consciences I lye not my conscience also bearing me witness My witness is in Heaven and my witness is in my own heart And a faithful witness will not lye Our sins testifie against us and as for our iniquities we know them For the iniquity which he knoweth At one time or other the Conscience will speak the truth the whole truth 1 Sam. 3.13 and nothing but the truth SECT V. 5. To accuse or excuse for grief or comfort To accuse Thus the accusers of the Woman taken in adultery were convicted by their own consciences When they cast up their accompt they shall come with fear Joh. 8.8 and their own iniquities shall convince them to their face Wisd 4.20 But the Righteous Man shall stand in great boldness and when they shall see it they shall be troubled with terrible
out the pure Channels that refresh the World into divers muddy streams that sterilize as well as bastardize the race of Mankind Virginity Not disparaging Virginity that sister of Angels and resemblance of the glorified Spirits who neither marry nor are given in marriage nor those that are innocently blemished by unlawful conceptions and births because they could not help it Why Marriage was ordained But still Marriage is what it ever was and ever will be a most honourable estate instituted of God in Paradise in the time of Man's innocency signifying the Mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church Which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first Miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galile and is commended of St. Paul to be honourable among all men and therefore is not to be enterprized or taken in hand unadvisedly lightly or wantonly to satisfie mens carnal lusts and appetites like brute beasts which have no understanding but reverently discreetly advisedly soberly and in the fear of God duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained First it was ordained for the procreation of Children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. Secondly it was ordained a Remedy against sin and to avoid fornication that such persons as have not the gift of Continency might marry and keep themselves undefiled Members of Christ's Body Thirdly for the mutual Society help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other both in prosperity and adversity This so honourable Estate makes not only Flesh of our Flesh and bone of our bone but Spirit of our Spirit and that two are one Flesh and one Spirit So God and Man Christ and his Church Man and Wife Fathers and Children Fathers and Mothers Sons and Daughters Brothers and Sisters Husbands and Wives and all Relations are mutually each others Christ the King is the Betrothed and Husband as well as Father of his Church and Kingdom And Christ's Church is the Subje ct the Spouse and Wife of Christ her Husband Therefore SECT V. Were it but for a bare civil respect it stands the Kingdom of the World in very great stead carefully to look after the right ordering of Marriages And surely there are weighty reasons for it It keepeth the purity of the Bloud from commixtion of base Seed Benefits of Marriage It gives a right to the true Sons and Daughters to take comfort in them and receive help from them to honour and enrich our own and not anothers Issue It preserves from the greatest usurpation of Natural rights to each Man's Body to each Man's Wife to eat the Fruit of my own Tree and drink the Waters of mine own Cistern not to own and feed anothers Cattel in my proper Ground It prevents the greatest cheat in the World Abuses of Marriage to be cosened in my own Progeny and not be able to distinguish it from anothers What is more entirely mine own than the off-spring of my own loyns and she that is next to me and one Flesh with me It is the greatest dishonour imaginable to be thus chouced it is a wonder it is no more regarded nor stood upon I would gladly eat my own Bread and till my own Land I am nearest and dearest to my self and all the Love Honour and Estate I have I would willingly reserve to me and mine and my virtue wisdom and wit too if it were in my power Bastardy But contrary to Nature all that I have must flow from my genuine Breed to a spurious generation This misconveyes all Inheritances and breaks the bonds of Nature love and descent The Brood may be fair hopeful and wise for their parts of Body and Mind but they are none of mine and yet all that is mine must be theirs This distroies all the great Priviledges of Wills and Testaments so direct a part of the Law and so much useful to Mankind it jumbles together the Bloud of Mankind it befools the Labourers of Mankind Nobility is dasht and quite destroy'd by it Virtue and Honesty Religion and Laws are quite destroy'd by it It infatuates all the labours and studies of Mankind which should do good first to their own private Families and then to the publick state In a word it confounds all rihgts of Persons things and actions It lays all in common and wastes all and no body can express the mischief that redounds to the World by it To engraft wild plants into a natural stock To puddle pure Fountains to poyson wholsom waters to defile every nest and throw dung upon every clean place SECT VI. Rights by Marriage My chiefest right of Soul and Body and all that I have is to my God whose they are the next is to my self the next is to my second self or my Wife the next is to my Children and their Children Friends and Allies and mine for all these God hath given me Now all these are lost by my giving my right to the Devil and to harlots this is my own act and deed But some of these are lost by being torn from me by Extortioners and Adulterers this is their act and deed I must have a Father or else I could not be but he may be such a one as I never knew or never shall and this is not only a loss but a shame and misery to me but no sin because I could not help it I am in the condition of a Slave to possess nothing at all and Slaves usurp possession of all that is mine In Christ's Church and Kingdom there must be Chastity In Christ's Church and Kingdom there must be Fidelity in Families and Kingdoms Christ's Church consists of Families Therefore the solemn Covenant of Marriage must be kept inviolable in all Families because they are altogether married unto Christ their Husband Lord and King and not go a whoring from under their God Laws about Marriage For this purpose the good Laws of Men especially of the Romans are carefully to be observed who have taken a very strict course in every particular for the pure undertaking and performing of this great Business of Life that so much concernes the happy condition of Men in this World and in the World to come It is profitable therefore for Christians to take a survey of all those wholsom Constitutions set down in the Body of the Civil Law concerning Marriage Age of Persons 1. As first for the age of the Persons that are to marry The Law allowes of twelve in Females and fourteen in Males to be ripeness of years to contract for themselves Quality of Persons 2. The Persons condition that are to marry is considered that they be Liberi Cives Romani as hath been spoken of before Infamous 3. The Roman Law greatly abhorred Scenicos Lenones c. i. e. all ludicrous histrionical and mimical Persons that came upon the Stage as commonly most unchast and all pimps
one and the same and by consequence the Sacraments of them as a mans picture is called by his name when seeing the pictures of our Princes for example we say This is H. the Eighth and this is Queen Elizabeth But to say that the Sacraments of the old Law do immediately figure or assure the same thing which the Sacraments of the Gospel do is the same thing as to say The Rest of the Land of Promise and the everlasting Rest of the kingdom of Heaven are both one and the same Anonym on Hebr. ch 9. p. 179. He is the Mediatour of the New Testament We now use the word Testament and not Covenant because the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies a Testament and not a Covenant though sacred Writers use it to signifie also a Covenant And the ambiguity of the word did well serve the Author to draw his Argument from that which must needs be done in a Testament Testament And to speak a little yet more accurately Testament and Covenant differ but alternly as genus species For every Testament is a Covenant though not è contra For though the Heir do not covenant with the Testator at the making of the Testament because that may be done altogether without his knowledge which is necessarily required in him that covenanteth yet he covenants at the validity of the Testament For when the Covenant takes effect by his acceptance of the condition specified in the Testament and by his entrance upon the Inheritance Then though before he were free he covenants ex lege to perform the will of the Testator So that every Tastament at least when it is consummate and valid is a kind of Covenant and it is the best kind of Covenant 1. Because it is most solemnly testified by sealing and witnessing 2. Because it is most preciously confirmed even by death and the death of him that makes it who establisheth his own deed by his own death 3. Because it contains an extraordinary benefit in conveying the Testators Inheritance and whole estate to the Heir And lastly because it proceeds with the greatest freedom in leaving the Heir to his liberty whether he will accept of the Inheritance or not Now this Testament is the last will of God which must stand for ever because it is already confirmed and therefore cannot be revoked Idem on Heb. c. 8. p. 148. Seeing therefore that in the New Covenant whereof Christ is the Mediator there are contained better promises therefore it must needs be better than the Old and be so much better as the Promises are better Hence it is apparent that Eternal life was not openly promised in the Old Covenant nor a full forgiveness of all sins for seeing nothing can be found better to men than these two things if both these were promised in the Old Covenant how can the New Covenant be said to be established upon better promises But we urge this principally concerning the full remission of sins for this only is expresly mentioned in the New Covenant And we deny not but that Eternal life was occultly and secretly comprised in the promises of the Old Covenant as Paul doth manifest it who interprets and takes the words of the Law promising life to them who exactly keep all the precepts of it to be understood of Eternal life and Justification such as we obtain by Christ See Rom. 10.5 and Gal. 3.12 Notwithstanding when the whole Nation had been severely punished of God and by that punishment were brought to a sense of their sins and to return to the service of God then the Law by an everlasting Covenant granted them forgiveness of all their grievous sins in respect of all temporary punishments for this life without any sacrifices intervening See Lev. 26.40 ad finem New Covenant But the New Covenant contains a most open and clear promise of Eternal life Besides the New Covenant requires of no man an exact and absolute obedience in all points but is content with true Repentance and with such an amendment of Life as carrieth a Will never to offend God more And therefore trusting to the assistance of Gods Spirit we accustome our selves afterwards to no sin but walk in the ways of all virtues although it may fall out that afterward through humane frailty we may sometimes slip in which point is contained the forgiveness of our sins They who think the contrary to what we have asserted do affirm That the Promises of the New Covenant are therefore called Better because they are clearer But we thereupon demand Whether they think the old Promises so clear that men may certainly know and believe them by virtue of the Covenant or not If they say the first that they are so clear then we deny it not only of the remission of sins which the very nature of Moses Law requiring the merit of Works doth reject but also of Eternal life Neither could the Author call the Promises of the new Covenant simply better therefore because they are herein proposed either somewhat more clearly or much more clearly much less could he gather from thence That the dignity of the new Covenant was greater than that of the old and yet again much less could he thence infer that the Priesthood of Christ is better than the Legal neither was it any way convenient that therefore the Old Covenant should be abrogated and a new one made For a declaration of an old Covenant is not a new Covenant diverse from the old neither doth such a Declaration abrogate the old but rather illustrate and establish it And a New Covenant doth require not a declaration of the old but new Conditions and new Promises made in Gods name Neither had Christ been the Mediator of the New Covenant but only an Interpreter and Explainer of it But if they say the latter that they were not so clear we willingly grant that of Eternal life but not of a full remission of all sins given to such as amended their ways for this was no way contained in the Old Covenant either openly or covertly but was altogether repugnant to that Covenant And such a covert Promise must not be truly accounted for the promise of a Covenant but only such a Promise as every man may understand and be assured of it from the Covenant if he perform the Conditions c. Mr. Thornd l. 2. p. 25. The Correspondence between the two Covenants is this That as God by the first tendred them the happiness of the land of Promise Correspondence of Covenants upon condition of governing themselves according to the Law which he gave them by Moses So by the second he tenders Everlasting life to all those that shall undertake to profess the Faith of Christ and live according to that which he taught Which being no more questionable than it can be questioned by those that profess themselves Christians whether or no the New Testament was intended and designed by the Old whether Moses
and for everlasting Heb. 13.8 When St. Peter saies That the Prophets who foretold the Gospel searched against what time the Spirit of Christ that was in them declared and testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glorious things that followed 1 Pet. 1.10 When St. Paul saith That all Gods Promises are Yea and Amen in Christ 2 Cor. 1.20 Methinks it is strange that a Christian should imagine that there was not consideration of Christ in these promises under which they ran the race of Christians Nor could St. Paul say As by Adam all die so by Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.22 Nor could the comparison hold between the first and second Adam Ro. 5.12 19. if that life which I have shewed Christ restores Christians to were given to the Fathers before Christ without consideration of Christ Nor could the Apostle otherwise say That Christ is the Mediatour of the New Covenant that death coming for the ransom of those transgressions that were under the old they that are called may receive the promise of an everlasting Inheritance Heb. 9.15 But because those sins which were redeemed only to a temporal effect by the sacrifices of the old Law as also those which were not redeemed at all by any were by the sacrifice of Christ redeemed to the purchase of the World to come Which is that which St. Paul tells the Jews Act. 13.29 That through Christ every one that believeth is justified from all things which they could not be justified of by the Law of Moses For as the Law did not expiate capital offences so it expiated none but to the effect of a civil promise And though we construe the words of St. John Apoc. 13.8 Whose names are not written in the book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World out of the same sense repeated Ap. 13.8 Not that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world but that their names were written in his book from the foundation of the world yet inasmuch as it is called the book of the Lamb that was foreknown from the foundation of the World 1 Pet. 19. When Moses demands not to be written in Gods book when mention is made of it in the New Testament it must be the book of Christ in the mystical sense And when St. Paul saith that Christ gaeve himself a ransom for all A testimony for due time what can he mean but that though he gave himself for all yet this was not to be testified till the proper time of the preaching of the Gospel And what is this but that though this is testified only by the preaching of the Gospel yet he was a ransom for all Which reason suffers not the same term All Heb. 2.9 Ro. 3.23 to be restrained from that generality which it naturally signifies Lastly when the Apostle argues that if Christ should offer himself more than once that he might more than once enter into the Holy of Holies he must have suffered oft from the foundation of the World that is before the end of the World in which he came indeed Heb. 9.25 26. he must needs suppose that he suffered for all that were saved before the Gospel For what pretence can there be that he should suffer for sins under the Gospel before the Gospel more than that the High Priest before the Law should expiate those sins which were committed against the Law by entring in to the Holie of Holies And here you may see that I intend not to affirm that all that were saved under the Law though in consideration of Christ did know in what consideration Christ should be their salvation as Christians under the Gospel do But to refer my self to the determination of St. Augustine and other Fathers and Doctors of the Church that they understood it in their Elders and Superiors the Prophets of God and their Disciples the Judges of Israel who were also Prophets and the Fathers of several ages of whom you read Heb. 11. Who being acquainted with the secret of Gods purpose were to acquaint the people with it so sparingly and by such degrees as the secret wisdom of God had appointed These things thus premised I do acknowledge and challenge the act of God in dispensing in the execution of his original Law and bringing the Gospel into effect instead of it not to be the act of a private person remitting this particular interest in the punishment of those sins whereby his Law was transgressed But the Act of a Master of a houshold or the Prince and Soveraign of a Commonwealth which you please disposing of Mankind as his Subjects or Houshold Servants c. Dr. Taylor Rule of Consc 2 Book p. 319. I do not here intend a Dispute whether Christ hath given us Laws of which neither before Moses or since there are no foot-steps in the Old Testament for I think there are none such but in the letter or Analogy they were taught and recommended as before But this I say that some excellencies and perfections of Morality were by Christ superadded in the very instances of the Decalogue These also were bound upon us with greater severity are indeared to us by special promises and we by proper aids are enabled to their performance And the Old Commandments are explicated by new Commentaries and are made to be Laws in new instances to which by Moses they were not obliged And some of those excellent saying which are respersed in the Old Testament and which are the dawnings of the Evangelical light are now part of the body of light which derives from the Sun of Righteousness In so much that a commandment which was given of old was given again in a new manner and to new purposes and to more eminent degrees and therefore is also called a New Commandments c. v. 3. Book c. 3. p. 555. Idem 2. B. c. 3. p. 469. In the Religion of the old World the Religion of Sacrifices and consumptive oblations it is certain themselves did not choose by natural reason but they were taught and enjoyn'd by God For that it is no part of a natural Religion to kill Sacrifices and offer to God Wine and Fat is evident by the Nature of the things themselves the cause of their institution and the Matter of Fact that is the evidence that they came in by positive Constitution For Blood was anciently the sanction of Laws and Covenants Sanctio à Sanguine say the Grammarians because the Sanction or establishment of Laws was that which bound the life of Man to the law and therefore when the Law was broken the Life or Blood was forfeited But then as in Covenants in which sometime the wilder people did drink Blood the gentler and more civil did drink Wine the blood of the Grape So in the forfeiture of Lands they also gave the blood of Beasts in exchange for their own Now that this was less than what was done is certain and therefore it
must suppose remission and grace a favourable and gracious acceptation which because it is voluntary and arbitrary in God less than his due and more than our merit no natural reason can teach us to appease God with Sacrifices It is indeed agreeable unto reason that blood should be poured forth when the life is to be paid because the blood is the life But that one life should redeem another that the blood of a Beast should be taken in exchange for the life of a man That no reason naturally can teach us Lev. 27.29 The life of the flesh is in the Blood and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an atonement for poor souls for it is the Blood that maketh an atonement for the Soul according to which are those words of St. Paul Without shedding of blood there is no remission meaning that in the Law all expiation of sins was by Sacrifices to which Christ by the sacrifice of himself put a period But all this was by Gods appointment but no part of a Law of Nature 1. Because God confined it amongst the Jews to the family of Aaron and that only in the land of their own Inheritance the Land of promise which could no more be done in a natural Religion than the Sun can be confin'd to a Village Chappel 2. Because God did express oftentimes that he took no delight in the sacrifices of Beasts Psal 40 Ps 50 Ps 51. Is 1. Jer. 7. Hos 6. Mich. 6. 3. Because he tells us in opposition to Sacrifices and external Rites what that is which is the natural and essential Religion in which he does delight The sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving a broken and a contrite heart that we should walk in the way which he hath appointed that we should do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God He desires Mercy and not Sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings 4. Because Gabriel the Arch-angel foretold that the Messias should make the daily sacrifice to cease 5. Because for above 1600 years God hath suffered that Nation to whom he gave the Law of Sacrifices to be without Temple or Priest or Altar and therefore without Sacrifice But then if we enquire why God gave the Law of Sacrifices and was so long pleased with it the Reasons are evident and confess 't 1. Sacrifices were types of that great oblation which was made upon the Altar of the Cross 2. It was an Expiation which was next in kind to the real forfeiture of our own lives it was blood for blood a life for a life a less for a greater it was that which might make us confess Gods severity against sin though not feel it It was enough to make us hate the sin but not to sink under it It was sufficient for a sine but so as to preserve the state It was a Manuduction to a great Sacrifice but suppletory of the great loss and forfeiture It was enough to glorifie God and by it to save our selves It was insufficient in it self but accepted in the great Sacrifice It was enough in shadow when the substance was so certainly to succeed 3. It was given the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions affirms L. 6. c. 18. That being loaden with expence of sacrifices to one God they might not be greedy upon the same terms to run after many And therefore the same Author affirms Before their golden Calf and other Idolatries Sacrifices were not commanded to the Jews but perswaded only recommended and left unto their liberty By which we are at last brought to this Truth That it was taught by God to Adam and by him taught to his posterity that they should in their several manners worship God by giving to him something of all that he had given us And therefore something of our time and something of our goods And as that was to be spent in praises and celebration of his name so these were to be given in consumptive offerings but the manner and measure was left to choice and taught by superadded reasons and positive Laws c. Idem ib. l. 2. c. 2. p. 321. I know it is said very commonly and the Casuists do commonly use that method That the explication of the Decalogue is the sum of all their moral Theology but how insufficiently the foregoing Instances do sufficiently demonstrate I remember that Tertullian I suppose to try his wits finds all the Decalogue in the Commandment which God gave to Adam to abstain from the forbidden fruit In hâc enim lege Adae datâ omnia praecepta recondita recognoscimus L. adv Jud. quae posteà repullulaverunt data per Mosem And just so may all the Laws of Nature and of Christ be found in the Decalogue Decalogue as the Decalogue can be found in the Precept given to Adam But then also they might be found in the first Commandment of the Decalogue and then what need had their been of Ten It is therefore more than probable that this was intended as a digest of all those Moral Laws in which God would expect and exact their obedience leaving the perfection and consummation of all unto the time of the Gospel God intending by several portions of the eternal or natural Law to bring the world to that perfection from whence Mankind by sin did fall and by Christ to enlarge this Natural Law to a similitude and conformity to God himself as far as our Infirmities can bear Id. ib. l. 2. c. 3. p. 521. That which is true to day will be true to morrow and that which is in its own nature good or necessary is good or necessary every day and therefore there is no essential duty of the Religion but is to be the work of every day To confess Gods glory to be his subject to love God to be ready to do him service to live according to nature and to the Gospel to be chast to be temperate to be just these are the employments of all the periods of a Christians life For the moral law of Religion is nothing but the moral law of Nature Those who in the Primitive Church put off their Baptism to the time of their death knew that Baptism was a profession of holiness and an undertaking to keep the Faith and live according to the Commandments of Jesus Christ and that as soon as ever they were baptized that is as soon as ever they had made profession to be Christs Disciples they were bound to keep all the laws of Christ and therefore that they deferred their Baptism was so egregious a prevarication of their duty that as in all reason it might ruine their hopes so it proclaimed their folly to all the world For as soon as ever they were convinced in their understanding they were obliged in their Consciences And although Baptism does publish the Profession Baptism and is like the forms and solemnities of law yet
a word they say and unsay sometimes bring in remission of sins and sometimes their own satisfaction and so set St. Paul and their Church at such a distance that neither St. Peter himself nor all the Angels and Saints she prayeth to will be able to reconcile them and make his Gratis and their Merits meet in one It is true every good act doth justifie a man so far as it is good and God so far esteemeth them holy and good and taketh notice of his graces in his Children he registreth the patience of Job the zeal of Phineas and the devotion of David not a cup of cold water not a mite flung into the treasury but shall have its reward But yet all the works of the Saints in the world cannot satisfie for the breach of the Law for let it once be granted what cannot be denied that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 guilty and culpable before God that all have sinned and are come short of the glory of God then all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits and Satisfaction and Inherent righteousness will vanish as a mist before the Sun and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church Bring in Abraham and Isaac and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles and deck them with all those vertues which made them glorious but yet they sinned Bring in the noble Army of Martyrs who shed their blood for Christ but yet they sinned They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were slain with the sword but yet they sinned and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin obnoxious to it for ever and cannot be redeemed by his own blood because he sinned but by the blood of him in whom there was no sin to be found Justificatio Impii this one form of speech of Justifying a sinner doth plainly exclude the Law and the Works of it and may serve as an Axe or Hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Anticks which are fastned to the building which may perhaps take a wandring or gadding fancy but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding We do not find that beauty in their artificial and forced inventions that we do in the simple and native truth Neither are those effects which are as irradiations and resultances from forgiveness of sin so visible in their Justification by faith and works as in the free remission which is by faith alone The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after remission but have as much power to remove our sins as our breath hath to remove a mountain or put out the fire of hell For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander in killing Callisthenes Crimen aeternum an Eternal crime which no vertue of our own can redeem Let me add my passions to my actions my Imprisonment to my Alms let me suffer for Christ let me die for Christ But yet I have sinned We may observe those Justitiaries how their complexion altereth how their colour goeth and cometh how they are not the same Men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity and nothing but Mercy on their Death-Beds nothing but the Bloud of Martyrs then and nothing but Christ's now nothing but their own satisfaction all their lives and nothing but Christ's at their last gaspe Before Magis honorificum it was more honourable to bring in something of our own towards the forgiveness of our sins but none for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness Because there is no harbour here Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est as the best shelter And here they will abide till the storm be overpast Id. ib S. 24. p. 870 c. Imputed Righteousness Some stand much upon imputed Righteousness and it is true which they say if they understood themselves And upon Christ's Righteousness imputed to us which might be true also if they did not interpret what they say For this in a pleasing phrase they call To appear in our Elder Brother's Robes and apparel that as Jacob did we may steal away the Blessing Thus the Adulterer may say I am chast with Christ's Chastity and if he please every wicked Person may say That with Christ he is crucified dead and buried And that though he did nothing yet he did it though he did ill yet he did well because Christ did it This Righteousness if they have no other doth but ill become them because it had no Artificer but the Fancy to make it For that Christ's Righteousness is thus imputed to any we do not read no not so much as that it is imputed though in some sense the phrase may be admitted Jerm For what is done cannot be undone no not by Omnipotency it self for it implyeth a contradiction Deo qui omnia potest hoc impossibile God who can do all things cannot restore a lost Virginity He may forgive it blot it out bury it not impute it account of it as if it had never been but a sin it was We read indeed that Faith was imputed to Abraham for Righteousness Ro. 4.3 And the Apostle interpreteth himself out of the 32. Psal Blessed is the Man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without work Gal. 3.6 2 Cor. 5.21 That is as followeth whose sins are forgiven to whom the Lord imputeth no sin And Abraham believed in God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness And we are made the Righteousness of God in him That is we are counted righteous for his sake And it is more than evident that it is one thing to say That Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us another that Faith is imputed for Righteousness or which is the very same our sins are not imputed to us Which two imputations of Faith for Righteousness and not-imputation of sin make up that which we call the Justification of a Sinner For therefore are our sins blotted out by the hand of God because we believe in Christ and Christ in God That place where we are told that Christ of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification is not such a Pillar of Christ's imputed Righteousness in that sense which they take it as they fancy'd when they first set it up For the sense of the Apostle is plain and can be no more than this That Christ by the will of God was the only cause of our Righteousness and Justification and that for his sake God will justifie and absolve us from all our sins will reckon or account us holy and just and wise Not that he who loved the error of his life is wise or he that hath been unjust is righteous in that wherein he was unjust or
he that was impure in that he was impure is holy because Christ was so but because God will for Christ's sake accept and receive and embrace us as if we were so Unless we shall say that as we are wise with Christ and holy and righteous so with Christ also we do redeem our selves For he who is said to be our Righteousness is said also to be our Redemption in the next words c. Id. ib. S. 44 p. 1074 c. It is true indeed the Gospel hath been preached these 1600 years and above many questions have been raised about Justification For though Men have been willing to go under the name of justified persons yet have they have been busie to enquire how Justification hath been wrought in them They are justified they know not how Many and divers opinions have been broach'd amongst the Canonists and Confessionists and others Osiander nameth twenty and there are many more at this day And yet all may consist well enough for ought I see and still that sense Justification which is deliver'd in Scripture as necessary remains entire For 1. it is necessary to believe That no Man can be justified by the works of Law precisely taken and in this all agree 2. It is necessary to believe that we are not justified by the Law of Moses either by it self or joyn'd with Faith in Christ and in this all agree 3. That Justification is not without remission of sins and imputation of Righteousness and in this all agree 4. That a dead Faith doth not justifie and here is no difference 5. That that is a dead Faith which is not accompanied with good works and a holy and serious purpose of good Life And in this all agree Lastly that Faith in Christ Jesus implyeth an advised and deliberate assent that Christ is our Prophet and Priest and King And in this all agree Da si quid ultra est And what is more is but a vapour But those interpretations which have been made upon this Nihil ampliùs quam sonant Nec animum faciunt quia non habent What matter is it whether I believe or not believe know or not know that our Justification doth consist in one or more acts so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest Blessing that God can let fall upon his Creature and believe that by it I am made acceptable in his sight and though I have broke the Law yet I shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed whether it be done by pardoning all my sins or imputing universal obedience to me or the active or passive obedience of Christ c. Id. 1. Vol. S. 22. p. 427. Adam sinned and we die We were all in the loyns of that one Man Adam when that one Man slew us all And this we are too ready to confess that we are born in sin Nay Original Sin we fall so low as to damn our selves before we were born This some may do in humility but most are content it should be so well pleased in their Pedigree well pleased that they are brought into the World and in that filth and uncleanness that God doth hate and make the unhappiness of their Birth an Advocate to plead for those pollutions for those willful and beloved sins which they fall into in the remaining part of their life as being the proper and natural issues of the weakness and impotency with which we were sent into the World But this is not true in every part That weakness whatsoever it is can draw no such necessity upon us nor can be wrought into an Apology for sin or an excuse for dying For to conclude and wrap up all our actual sin in the folds of Original weakness is nothing else but to cancel our old obligations and to put all on our first Parents score and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole World Our natural and original weakness I will not now call into question since it hath had such Grandees in our Church Men of great learning and piety for its Nursing Fathers and that for many centuries of years but yet I cannot see why it should be made a cloak to cover our other transgressions or why we should miscarry so often with an eye cast back upon our first Fall which is made ours but in another man Nor any reason though it be a plant water'd by the best hands why men should be so delighted in it why they should lie down and repose themselves under its shadow why they should be so willing to be weak and so unwilling to hear the contrary why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower and the way to death broader than it is In a word why we should thus magnifie a temptation and disparage our selves why we should make each importunate object as powerful and irresistible as God himself Petrar and our selves as Idols even nothing in this world Magna pars humanarum querelarum non injusta modò materiâ sed stulta est for when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin when we feel the gripes and gnawings of our Conscience we commonly lay hold on those remedies which are worse than the disease suborn an unseasonable and ill applied conceit of our own natural weakness which is more dangerous than the temptation as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow We fall and plead we were weak and fall more than seven times a day and hold up the same plea still till we fall into that same place where we shall be muzled and speechless not able to say a word where our complaints will end in curses in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Omnes nostris vitiis favemus quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem we are all tender and favourable to our own sins and because they pleased us when we committed them We are unwilling to revile them now but wipe off as much of their filth as we can because we resolve to commit them again And those transgressions which our lusts conceived and brought forth by the midwifry of our will we remove as far as we can and lay them at the door of necessity are ready to complain of God and Nature it self Now this complaint against Nature when we have sinned is most unjust for God and Nature have imprinted in our Souls those common principles of goodness That good is to be embraced and evil is to be abandoned that we must do to others as we would be done to Those practical notions those anticipations as the Stoicks call them of the mind preparations against sin death which if we did not willfully stifle and choak them might lift up our Souls far above those depressions of Self-love and Covetousness and those evils which destroy us quae ratio semel in universum vincit which Reason with the help of Grace overcometh at
once For Reason doth not only arm and prepare us against those inroads incursions against those as we think so violent assaults but also when we are beat down to the ground it checketh us and upbraideth us for our fall Indeed to look down upon our selves and then lift up our eyes to him from whom cometh our Salvation is both the duty and security of the Sons of Adam And when we watch over our selves and keep our hearts with diligence when we strive with our inclination weakness as well as we do with the temptation then if we fall God remembreth whereof we are made considereth our condition that we are but Men and though we fail his mercy endureth for ever But to think of our weakness and then to fall and because we came infirm and diseased into the World to kill our selves to seek out death in the error of our life to dally and play with danger to be willing to joyn with the temptation at the first shew and approach as if we were made for no other end than to complain of weakness is to charge God and Nature foolishly not only to impute our sins to Adam but to God himself And thus we bankrupt our selves and complain we were born poor we cripple our selves and then we complain we are lame we deliver up our selves and fall willingly under the temptation and then pretend it was a Son of Anak too strong for such grashoppers as we We delight in sin we trade in sin we were brought up in it and we continue in it and make it our Companion our Friend with which we most familiarly converse and then comfort our selves and cast all the fault on our temper and constitution and the corruption of our nature and we attribute our full growth in sin to that seed of sin which we should have chok'd which had never shot up into the blade and born such evil fruit but that we manured and watered it and were more than willing that it should grow and multiply And this though it be a great sin as being the mother of all those mishapen births and monsters which walk about the World we dresss and deck up and give it a fair and glorious Name and call it Humility Which is saith Hilary the hardest and greatest work of our Faith to which it is so unlike that it is the greatest enemy it hath and every day weakeneth and disenabled it that it doth not work by Charity but leaves us captives to the World and Sin which but for this conceit we would easily vanquish tread down under our feet We may call it Humility but it is Pride a stubborn and insolent standing out with God that made us upon this foul and unjust pretense that he made us so Humilitas sophistica saith Petrus Blesensis the Humility of Hypocrites which at once boweth and pusheth out the horn in which we disgrace and condemn our selves that we may do what we please and speak evil of our selves that we may be worse O wretched Men that we are we groan it out there is Musick in the sound which we hear and delight in and carry along in our mind and so become wretched indeed even those miserable Sinners which will ever be so And shall we call this Humility If it be Ro. 7.24 it is as the Apostle speaketh a Voluntary humility but in a worse sense he is the humblest Man that doth his duty for that humility which is commended to us in Scripture lifteth us up to Heaven This which is so epidemical sinketh us into the lowest pit That Humility boweth us down with sorrow this bindeth our handswith sloth that looketh upon our imperfections past this maketh way for more to come that ventureth and condemneth it self and ventureth farther this runneth out of the field and dare not look upon the enemy Nec mirum si vincantur qui jam victi sunt For first though I deny not a derived weakness and from Adam Weakness though I leave it not after Baptism as subsistent by it self or bound to the Center of the Earth with the Manichee nor washt to nothing in the Fount with others yet it is easie to deceive our selves and to think it more contagious than it is more operative more destructive than it would be if we would shake off this conceit and rowse our selves and stand up against it Ignaviâ nostrâ fortis est It may be it is our sloth and cowardise that maketh it strong Certainly there must be more force than this hath to make us so wicked as many times we are and there be more promoters of the Kingdom of darkness in us than that which we brought into the World Lord what a noise hath Original sin made amongst the Sons of Adam and what ill use hath been made of it When this Lion roareth all the Beasts of the forrest tremble and yet are Beasts still We hear of it and are astonished and become worse and worse and yet there are but few that exactly know what it is When we are in faults we do not know that we are so no more than the Tree that it grows Much less can we discover what poyson we brought with us into the World which as it is the nature of some kind of poyson though it have no visible operation for the present may some years after break out from the head to the foot in swellings and sores full of corruption and not be fully purged out to our lives end Again in the opening and drawing of our Reason we have scarce so much light as to see our selves by and understand little more than the rod which we soon forget boldly venture upon the same fault for which we felt it and should count it a virtue and our bounden duty to do it but for the smart it bringeth with it which yet can work in us little conscience of guilt And then in our riper age our Bloud runneth in our Veins with more heat and we are active and strong to act over that with some sense and feeling which we learnt but imperfectly in our Nonage which our Nurse pratled into us which Servants read to us with a licentious tongue and wanton behaviour and many times we repeat and express those Rudiments and Principles of things which those that are set over us do commonly first teach and we shew our selves as perfect in them as those old gray headed Atheists that taught them These we take up betimes wantonness revenge love of the World and being used unto them they are no burdens if at any time they wring us we have learnt so much at Church as to cast them off upon Adam to ease our selves with the remembrance of our natural weakness though we know not what it is nor have learnt it half so perfectly as we have done those other Lessons which have no evil in them as we think But that which is of ancient extraction derived
from the first evil that ever was seen under the Sun But then in our old age which is a complication and collection of all sins as well as diseases how should a dim eye discover it in the midst of so many evil habits wreathed platted one within another Covetousness wrought in with luxury and with luxury cruelty each thwarting and yet friendlily complying one with the other Can we now say That these sins were thus multiplied and raised to such a height by the power and continued force of that fatal legacy which our first Parents left us Nor was this the last Crime wherewith our Mother crown'd us in the day of our conception Can we labour and toil can we affect and study sin can we make it our business our ambition to walk in our evil waies and say that we were put in them from the beginning and forced forward by the violent hand that first put us in Indeed the Old Man the old Sinner is glad to hear of another Old Man though he never intendeth to crucifie him nor well understandeth what it is no more than the vulgar do Antichrist which in their phrase is a Beast and hath horns Multitude of years though Age be talkative yet many times knows no more of this Primitive and famed evil than they do who are but of yesterday Even they who have been brought up in Nob in the City and University of Priests have not all agreed of their discovery of this evil but have presented it in so many shapes that it will be hard to chuse and say This is the right this this it is I am sure that their opinions are more than the sins can be which original sin doth necessarily bring into act The Anabaptists in the daies of our Fore-Fathers called it Somnium Augustini Some make it a sin and some a punishment only some make it both Some have made it nothing but the want and deprivation of original Righteousness or an habitual aversion and obliquity of the Will Others have made it the image of the Devil There be that conceive the whole essence of Man to be corrupted there be that make it an Accident and there have been that have made it a substance And there have not been wanting those who have made it nothing All agree in this That there is something in us which we must strive to subdue and keep under Some call it our Natural inclination which may be the matter of vertue as well as of vice Others Original sin which to yield to is to die but to curb and restrain to fight against and conquer it is the great work and business of a Christian I speak not this to take away our original weakness but to take it away from being an excuse For In the second place our Natural weakness is so far from excusing our sin or making of it less voluntary that we are bound by our very Profession to crucifie this old Adam in us to mortifie our earthly members and lusts non exercere quod nati sumus not to be what indeed we are to be in the body but out of the body to tame the wantonness of the flesh For did we not for this give up our names unto Christ Were we not baptized in this Faith It is my Melancholy saith the Envious It is my Choler saith the Revenger It is my Blood saith the Wanton It is my Appetite saith the Glutton and so every man runneth on his own ways because the wind that driveth him cometh from no other treasury but himself no other corner but his corrupt heart Fructu peccatorum utuntur ipsa subducunt They are content to reap the fruit and pleasure of sin but withdraw the sin it self and remove it out of the way But this is not the right use of our Natural weakness which may be left in us but as all agree to humble not disarm us to shew we are men weak and impotent in our selves not to make us proud and rebellious against our God but to set us upon our guard and to make us bestir our selves and cast up all our forces and send our Prayers and Ambassadours to heaven for help and succour against this Inmate and domestick enemy The Envious should purge his melancholy Ro. 12.15 and rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weep with them that weep The Cholerick bridle his Anger and make it set before the Sun The Wanton quench that fire in his blood and make himself an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven The Glutton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wage war with his Appetite and set a knife to his throat If this care were general if we understood Christianity aright and did strive and struggle with our selves the best contention in the World if we did do an act of justice upon our selves perform that Judicatory part of the Gospel labour to bind this old Man in chains and crucifie the flesh with the lusts and affections we should not complain or rather speak so contentedly of Adam's fall not bemoan our selves and yet be pleased well enough in it not take that doctrine in the left hand which is offered to us with the right or as he spake in the Historian Sinistrâ dextram amputare and by a sinister and unnecessary conceit of our own weakness rob and deprive our selves of that strength which might have defended us from sin and death which now is voluntary because we cannot derive it from any other fountain than our own wills For Last of all the blemishes of our Understanding and Will which we are said to receive by Adam's fall what they may be either by certain knowledge or conjecture yet we shall not die unless we will And if such we were all yet now we are washed now we are sanctified 1 Cor. 6.12 now we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his disease but returneth to give thanks The Blind man who is cured doth not run into the ditch and impute it to his former blindness but rejoyceth that he can now see the light and walk by the light he seeth And we cannot without foul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we recovered again in Christ and that improved and exalted many degrees For not as the offence so is also the free gift Ro. 5.15 c. saith the Apostle For as by the offence of one many were made sinners that is were under the wrath of God and so considered as if they had themselves committed that sin So by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous made so not only by imputation that we would have and nothing else have sin removed and be sinners still but made so that is supplied with all helps and with all strength that is necessary and sufficient to forward and perfect those duties of piety which are required at the hands of a justified person For do we not magnifie the Gospel from